Prebble Richard: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Prebble Richard: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19329] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) 
: 
 May I say first that I am a bit of a stickler for the rules so I find it rather difficult to see members making speeches to the galleries which is against the rules. At the same time I can see why members are doing so: this is a historic settlement. Perhaps I can skate round the rules and say that I too wish that Ngati Awa will do well. This is a substantial settlement of I think over $40 million. Not only is that the case but it also includes some land and the bill provides—for the first time I think in one of these settlements—a right to a marine quota so the total value will rise in the future. As people tend to look back at these speeches in the  
Hansard 
 let me acknowledge—and in this respect make it unanimous in the Parliament—that what happened to Ngati Awa was a disgrace. There is no doubt about that. For the Crown to have declared people to be rebels when they were not is one of those things that I guess one cannot apologise for often enough. The ACT party acknowledges that although in fairness one has to point out that previous Parliaments have acknowledged that there was a grievous wrong and have made attempts—generous by the standards of those times; we should not measure them by today’s standards—at settlement. 
At this point I say that I wish the people of Ngati Awa well. They come from the Bay of Plenty. They are a people with considerable resources and with the amount of money in this settlement I hope they will do well. There has been criticism of comments I made yesterday. I am afraid I still think those comments are accurate. Indeed I have been informed since then that the reason this settlement came before us as a private bill rather than a public bill is that civil servants also pointed out that the legislative structure the Crown was putting in place for Ngati Awa to administer this $40 million was woefully inadequate. We pass protections for beneficiaries infants and the like with regard to assets yet in this area we have failed to do so. I do think that that is a possible future grievance so I have some doubts as to whether this bill will turn out to be a permanent settlement. 
I listened very carefully to the remarks made by the New Zealand First member Mr Paraone who said things that I think have a great deal of merit. How on earth can this Parliament start to define different hapu in a bill of this sort? One becomes extremely suspicious about that. I was a Minister when this treaty process first started; in fact I was the Minister who had to do some of the original negotiations. I started from a point of not having as much knowledge as one would like and I remember asking the officials how many iwi the Government believed there were in New Zealand. The first answer I got was that it was the same as the number of canoes plus one iwi that came down in a ball of fire. I was later told that there were 24 iwi. Then the number went up to 48 and by the time I finished as a Minister the Crown was recognising 120 iwi. Now it seems that the inflation of the number of iwi will become an inflation of the number of hapu. That is not an area where the Crown ought to be going and it is certainly not something we should put into statute law. 
That raises an objection of the ACT party to this process—an objection we have made in relation to every claim settlement. This process is actually an abrogation of Parliament’s rights. The Crown puts forward these bills and then says to the House that they cannot be amended in any way. As a parliamentarian I object to that. When we see in these bills measures that are contrary to public policy we are prevented by that ruling from making amendments. If New Zealand First had been able to put forward the amendment it suggested I certainly would have supported it and perhaps a majority of the members of the House would have realised that there was a mistake. But instead we have bills put forward in this way. I say with the greatest of respect to Mr Brownlee that National and Labour the two old parties have formed a club on these settlements. The speeches we are hearing today are no different from the speeches we heard when National was in charge. I objected to the process when National was putting such settlements forward and I still object to it now that Labour is putting them forward. 
I now turn to another criticism that New Zealand First and the ACT party have in common. I point out that the ACT party has actually raised this objection for longer than New Zealand First has but I am glad to have the support of Mr Peters. We object to the phrase “principles of the treaty”. It is a meaningless phrase. It has caused enormous difficulty to the courts which are unable to interpret it. There is now a growing body of academic literature that criticises this House for passing bills containing that phrase undefined and turning over to the courts a matter that is for Parliament to determine. That is why the ACT party has never voted for a bill that contains the phrase “principles of the treaty”. We have two members’ bills—and I think Mr Peters has one—to try to define clauses that contain that phrase. I have listened to Mr Peters and other members asking in vain for Government members to define what those clauses mean.They have refused to do so and we as legislators should not pass a clause when no member of the Government is able to tell us what it means. That is a further reason why we will not be able to vote for this bill. 
I come now to another matter which Mr Stephen Franks drew to the attention of members at the Committee stage. Again it is very bad lawmaking. Part 4 of the bill requires the Environment Court and other Government agencies to give recognition to spiritual values. We do not know what they are; no one knows what they are. The Environment Court then gets claims regarding taniwha and the like. In a secular State even one that respects religion those sorts of phrases should not be contained in legislation. For that reason we will vote against this bill. 
Having said all that I still wish the people of Ngati Awa all the best with regard to their claim—and that does not come from a desire to get a new job. I just want them to do well. I hope that they will be able to manage the settlement well that it will enable the grievances of the past to be put behind us and that it will turn out to be a very good thing for Ngati Awa and the people of the Bay of Plenty.