Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Kia ora koutou. Āe ko Mārama Davidson tika tāu kia ora! Taranaki tūturu ā tēnā koutou anō koutou ko Taranaki whānui hoki. Kia ora.[Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Hello there you lot. Yes it is Marama Davidson you are right thank you! Greetings to you collectively once again genuine Taranaki and you as well Taranaki at large thank you.]I want to thank the Minister Chris Finlayson who at the start of his kōrero in the final reading of this the Taranaki Iwi Claims Settlement Bill acknowledged fully—well I think you can never acknowledge fully the injustice including what happened at Parihaka but he put on to the record of the House the scorched-earth confiscation of land the invasion of Parihaka and the taking of those tūpuna down to the south without trial some of them never returning and particularly as a wahine I want to acknowledge the Minister for reminding us of the assault that those wāhine faced. I cannot stand here without emphasising and acknowledging the deep takahi of the mana of wāhine that happens when that happens particularly as I was removed from this House within the first 5 days of my standing in it for wanting to maintain a voice to acknowledge the mamae of survivors wāhine survivors of assault. I do thank the Minister for putting that on to the record and actually saying those words. I stand here to recall those wāhine in those moments. It is the assaults that we want to continue to speak out against and not isolate our people who have gone through those similar assaults and I will stand in this House today to recall those wāhine and all of the whānau of Taranaki tūturu Taranaki whānui and descendants of Parihaka. Kia ora.I want to pick up again the issue of representation. I listened to my colleague Adrian Rurawhe when he distinguished that the settlement has actually resulted in an outcome of provision for iwi representation but on the committees—the Taranaki Regional Council's policy planning committee and the consents and regulatory committee. I look forward in particular to the Taranaki representation on the consents and regulatory committee on both of those committees because the representation the honouring of Te Tiriti and the representation of mana whenua in making decisions is at its heart about upholding the kaitiaki responsibilities to care for our people and our land. So we need to pull the narrative away from Oh they get a seat here and they get a seat there." It is not the point. The point is—and this is why whether it is representation on committees or at governance level is not in itself the outcome. The outcome as it always was supposed to be was to address the structural injustices that prevented mana whenua from engaging in those decisions in the first place. It is not giving something; it is returning something that was stolen. It is returning the representation at that decision-making level that was stolen.Here my Ngāti Hine whanaunga and I will tautohetohe that for ever and a day on our differing positions when it comes to representation and mana whenua upholding their kaitiaki responsibilities to ensure that our whenua our wai our tamariki and mokopuna for generations to come can benefit can survive can uphold the whakapapa of Taranaki and for that to happen as our tupuna always wanted when they envisioned Te Tiriti o Waitangi we need to have our people in those places of making decisions. That has to be guaranteed. And when we are a minority in Aotearoa in a democracy then we need those guarantees and the guarantee of that representation will benefit all citizens all people of Aotearoa whether you are Māori or not. That is the point of what was fought for in this settlement in Ngāruahine and it is why the Green Party Catherine Delahunty and Jan Logie took part in the hīkoi with Andrew Judd and all the people to arrive at Parihaka to stand for that representation and uphold the kaitiaki responsibility. So I want to be very clear about where I and the Green Party stand on that outcome of representation. I cannot stand in this House without also acknowledging Te Miringa Hohaia a man whom I have heard much about and whom I never had the honour of meeting but whose whānau and tamariki and descendants I have the privilege of being involved with and they I will say are unsure about whether or not he would have fully agreed to the settlement that we are talking about today. Through all the settlements that is a recurring theme. Nevertheless we acknowledge those differing voices. We acknowledge the hard work the challenges placed upon these settlement processes by the Crown. Tēnā koe Te Miringa. I want to acknowledge the hard work in the ratification process that happened and I note that the deed of settlement was initialled in July and then there followed numerous ratification hui and ballots. I want to acknowledge Te Kāhui o Taranaki Trust as Taranaki iwi's post-settlement entity for the democratic process for passing the ratification and in particular getting the views of those beyond the mandated negotiators. It is a trying process to try to get any sort of mandate and consensus. I acknowledge that and I acknowledge the particular efforts in this case that happened and the difficulty the ongoing difficulty and that difficulty does not stop here. There will be the ongoing conversations about decisions that are made over certain awa whenua papākainga and over what we involve ourselves in and what business ventures we uphold. All of that will continue to be an ongoing conversation and I wish Taranaki all the luck in maintaining that dialogue and reaching beyond just the few voices that are always easier to progress those kōrero with. Tēnā koutou. Just in my last bit Taranaki Maunga is such a tupuna that it deserves its own whole process. I am pleased that Minister Finlayson has indeed signalled his commitment for that to come up next. And again Parihaka and the injustice of the story too deserves its own entire settlement process and reconciliation process. So I want to put on record that we are pleased. Those will be hard. One of the things that this process has done that Te Tiriti settlement deeds have done is it has brought these stories to the fore for a lot of us who never knew—a lot of us. I am talking about even my own iwi. The tribunal hearings have brought so much of that to the fore to benefit all of us so that we have a bit of a better understanding of what has happened. That needs to continue. So as I sum up for all of the Taranaki iwi settlements that have happened this morning Ngāruahine Te Atiawa Taranaki tūturu this has been an incredibly humbling position today—to stand here with this enormous responsibility to try to uphold the mana with which you have all held yourselves throughout this process.Kia kaha Nō reira kei te mihi kei te mihi kei te mihi ki a koutou i waenganui i roto i tēnei Whare. Kua tae mai koutou ki tō whenua nō reira tēnā koutou tēna koutou huri noa kia ora tātou katoa.[Be strong. And so I acknowledge commend and congratulate you collectively amongst and within this House. You have arrived at your land so well done and congratulations to you collectively throughout and my thanks to us all.]"