Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) (remote): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Ki Te Arawa Waka tēnei te mihi. Ki ngā uri o Ngāti Rangitihi tēnā koutou i tēnei ahiahi. Ki ngā pakeke ki ngā tamariki mokopuna tēnā koutou.[Greetings Madam Speaker. To the peoples of Te Arawa greetings. To the descendants of Ngāti Rangitihi greetings this afternoon. To the elders and to the children and grandchildren greetings.]I first want to acknowledge my colleagues from around the House who have spoken to recognise and celebrate Ngāti Rangitihi today and the long-established principle in New Zealand that the Crown owes to Māori the duty to act in good faith according to the Treaty of Waitangi. That duty is recognised by MPs with different backgrounds and different ideologies and it's such an important part of giving effect to the vision our ancestors had for Aotearoa when they made agreements with one another in 1840. This legislation gives effect to the deed of settlement between the Crown and Ngāti Rangitihi which acknowledges both instances where the Crown did not fulfil that duty of good faith and I'm proud to be a part of a Parliament that does not erase the wrongs that the Crown has done but instead comes together in this way like we are today in acknowledging those wrongs and looking forward to setting them right. I want to echo what the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations said in his opening remarks this evening about it being a privilege to stand in support of this legislation and his words of appreciation for the Ngāti Rangitihi representatives who are in Wellington and those who are watching online due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Ngāti Rangitihi have endured a very long wait to settle their claims and this is a significant milestone today. It represents a huge amount of work and commitment by the negotiators those mandated by Ngāti Rangitihi those who have gathered the stories and the histories and told them and brought people together because of them and the wider whānau—all of you have a place in this all of you are celebrated today and all of your work is recognised. Today is also an opportunity to look to the future as an iwi to continue to build your modern identity and flourish collectively. It is a day of unification for Ngāti Rangitihi and that's something to be very proud of by everyone who's been involved in this process. I want to thank everyone who submitted on this bill and the diligent advisers and our clerks and my colleagues on the Māori Affairs Committee for their work and considering the views of submitters and advice in depth—largely by Zoom as we are now. And it wasn't light work learning the history of the tīpuna of Ngāti Rangitihi. It is a history of excessive land takings by the Crown under the guise of public works and not having sufficient land in the aftermath of the Tarawera eruption to keep people well and to support the future of the iwi. As previous speakers have noted today Ngāti Rangitihi are effectively a landless people and they have been dispossessed of their tribal lands. They now have interests in less than 4 percent of their original 250000 hectare tribal rohe which included Kaingaroa and much of that land interest which they do have is unable to be used for economic benefit due to its status as conservation or reserves land. But looking forward there are two main ways of addressing those injustices in this piece of legislation and in all Treaty settlement legislation. There is first the financial redress and many before me have touched on that and it is significant but it is the cultural redress that I want to touch on again because we've heard from speakers about the importance of conservation in that and what the iwi has agreed with the Crown and that is important and an exciting part of this to celebrate. It includes the settlement of 19 sites of deep significance to be transferred to Rangitihi as cultural redress on the settlement date and that includes two properties at Te Tapahoro Bay which are known as the beating heart of the Rangitihi rohe; two properties in and around the Waimangu Volcanic Valley and the former site of the Pink and White Terraces; and five properties at Matatā. But they mean more than the land and they are more than the sum of their parts: they represent relationships with neighbouring iwi and Tūhourangi in particular. They represent relationships with local government and the ability to come to the negotiating table as equals in the local government sphere. They represent relationships with arms of Government like the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and those culture and heritage acknowledgments are an opportunity to build on the rich history and culture and to tell those stories to a wider New Zealand audience. Some of those relationships will be held at the marae level some at the hapū level and they allow for the growth of leadership and a pipeline of young leaders in Rangitihi who will become ready to take on the leadership mantle that those negotiators watching today have taken so well and have set an incredible example. Cultural redress represents an opportunity to move forward as kaitiaki and as a partner to the Crown in the rohe. It is truly about nation building for Ngāti Rangitihi and it is an exciting thing to be able to do. It's also for the tamariki and mokopuna who will be future leaders and it guarantees ownership of assets of significance in the rohe which are important to that question of who we are and what we stand for as Māori. This cultural redress sets Ngāti Rangitihi up to stand strong in their rohe as kaitiaki and rangatira where they should be. May this House never forget what was lost because of the actions of the Crown. I commend this bill to the House.