Paraone PitaPITA PARAONE (NZ First): Ā tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker tēnā anō tātou i roto i Te Whare. Te mea tuatahi māku e mihi kau ana ki a koe e te tuakana e Kelvin nāu i 'hakarite tā tātou noho i te ata nei kia māmā te haere o tēnei pire mō Te Iwi o Ngāruahine. Tua atu i tēnā koutou ngā kanohi mai i Ngāruahine koutou mai i te maru o Taranaki kei te tautoko i ngā mihi i mihingia e aku tuakana i 'hakatau rā i a koutou i roto i tō koutou Whare i te rā nei nā reira; tēnā koutou! He mihi hoki ki tēnā o ngā mate maha i 'hakahuangia ētahi i roto i a mātou o Te Tai Tokerau kei te tūhonohono ki tēna o ngā mate kei waenganui i a koutou i te rā nei. Na reira e ai ki te kōrero: Nā rātou te pō ka hoki mai ki a tātou ko tātou te ata." Nā reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker and greetings to those once in the House. The first thing for me is to really commend you Kelvin the elder colleague who eased our situation this morning and allowed this bill for the people of Ngāruahine to proceed smoothly. Further to that I say to you the representatives of Ngāruahine from the shelter of Taranaki that I endorse the tributes accorded to you by my elder colleagues in welcoming you into your House today; come hither! I pay tribute as well to that one of the many who have passed away some of whom within us in the North were mentioned to link up with that one amidst you today. Therefore and according to the saying: "Theirs is the night and ours is the morning." And so I acknowledge commend and congratulate you collectively.]I take some delight in participating in this debate particularly in terms of seeing another Treaty claim settlement come before the House on its way to being enacted and therefore allowing the claimants to leave this House knowing that essentially what they have asked for has been resolved—not entirely but certainly resolved to a great extent. In this case we are talking about the claim from the Ngāruahine Claims Settlement Bill. I sat on the Māori Affairs Committee where we heard a number of submissions and can I say that I certainly support that process because it allows those who do not necessarily agree with the terms of settlement that have been reached to certainly air their concerns and for us as politicians to hear and to consider. First of all I want to say that this bill is one of a number that addresses some of the—in my view—serious breaches of the Treaty in the history of our country particularly in terms of the loss of life displacement of a people and the results of all of that. It is articulated in the bill as to what happened and we all know that before 1860 20 years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi this iwi was one of the most prosperous and economically successful iwi in the region—some would probably say "in New Zealand" at the time but I am from the north so I probably have a different view in that respect. However the fact is that there is no question about the economic position of Ngāruahine at the time. So the invasion of Crown troops has led to this claim being made before the Waitangi Tribunal and we all know the history involved in that. The Māori Affairs Committee's report makes reference to the Āraukuku issue and again like my colleague Kelvin Davis who am I to question the position that Āraukuku has taken? Given the whakapapa links between that hapū or iwi to that of the claimant group today that is something that will always be an issue for us as Māori who both have a concern about claims and do not agree with the claims but at least we have been assured that anyone from Āraukuku who is descended from their tūpuna is able to benefit from this particular claim. Some members of Āraukuku did not support that decision and they campaigned for a discrete settlement for their iwi or hapū—whatever we might want to describe them as. They wanted their own autonomy their own rangatiratanga. Some members disagree with the exclusion of Āraukuku from the list of hapū in the Ngāruahine claimant definition. The Crown has previously stated that Āraukuku's settlement alignment was for the hapū to resolve and to a certain extent I agree with that only as long as the Crown has not been responsible for that position and some would argue that it has been. The select committee has been assured by Ngāruahine that Āraukuku individuals with Ngāruahine whakapapa are able to benefit from the Ngāruahine settlement. The settlement process does not allow for the committee to address the concerns of Āraukuku satisfactorily and I in this part of this debate certainly support that notion. The other issue that was raised was in regard to the Stratford Power Station. The land was confiscated during the 1860s and awarded to Āraukuku after the raupatu as part of a reserve but subsequently became privately owned. As the Crown will not give privately owned land the committee would like to have the Crown produce public statements to accompany this settlement bill. The Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has assured this House that he will certainly do that. I just want to make some comments about the submissions. A large proportion of those who submitted certainly supported the bill. In regard to the Kanihi hapū and I quote from their submission "… throughout the entire treaty settlement process every effort was made by the Nga Hapu board and the negotiator(s) to ensure that everyone regardless of whether they were registered members of Nga Hapu or otherwise were kept informed by way of various mediums i.e. panui hui website email etc.". So that confirms that every effort was made to inform the beneficiaries of this claim. However some of the issues that were raised by the submitters—I want to mention them because one or two of them do have for me some validity. Ngāti Tū did not support the Ngāruahine-mandated collective—Ngā Hapū o Ngāruahine Iwi Inc.—and subsequently do not support the negotiated settlement. They believe that the settlement suffers from the same issues identified with my people from the Tai Tokerau Ngāpuhi and the issue of the Tūhoronuku Independent Mandated Authority. Another submitter was Democracy Action. It quite clearly stated that it opposed clauses 85 and 86 relating to cultural redress and iwi representation on council committees. This clause is something that is imposed on the people of that local body area who have been denied the right to elect who should be sitting on their council committees. That is a concern that has been expressed not only in terms of this claim but also as a consequence of other claims that have already been settled. I think that the argument that Māori are just as good as anyone else to stand for election has some validity. I think that we are in fact as Māori just as good as our fellow citizens and we should be putting ourselves forward to stand for those positions. However that raises another issue and I am not quite sure whether ultimately it will lead to another claim against the Crown—that people have been denied the opportunity of having their own wards so that they can stand for council. This bill does meet the intention of both the iwi and the Crown and on behalf of New Zealand First we commend this bill to the House."