Peters Winston: Tūhoe Claims Settlement Bill Te Urewera Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Tūhoe Claims Settlement Bill Te Urewera Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 23 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19481. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Ko tētahi atu pātai he aha te take e Winitana ka tatari koe mō tēnei rā? Kāre koe i haere ki mua i Te Komiti Whiriwhiri Māori i tērā wā ēngari ka tatari mō tēnei rā whakamutunga ka tū ka whakapuaki i ō whakaaro i tēnei ata.[A mist a mist alights and settles and the Mist Maiden lands face down on Maungapōhatu and lo it is Tūhoe Pōtiki indeed welcome welcome welcome. It is an honour for me to stand here this day during my last two weeks in Parliament to support this claim this matter today. Because of the length of time Tūhoe has fought to arrive at this day and the intense effort by Minister Finlayson to complete this claim as well as the several meetings here and in the territory of Tūhoe to conclude this claim I am still here for this and next week then I exit to return to my grandchildren. So I am still here today.I do not support the sentiments expressed by Winston today. I do not accept that discourse. That member doesnot really understand the needs of those people that own it. Does he know whether thatis good? He is unaware that Ūpokorehe Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Ruapani are well off and live as one in that region. Despitethe differences that these subtribes havethey live as a family in the bush at the seaside and lakeand furthermore they are there in that region. So I am glad to be here to advocate for you collectively today.Winston I have a question.Why did you wait until today? You didnotgo before theselectcommittee at that time but waited until this final day to rise and air your views this morning.]Rt Hon Winston Peters: Now that’s not true. Go and read the Hansard.Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES: Kai te kōrero. Kāre koe e puta atu ki mua i a rātou. Tēhea te rangi i tae koe ki mua o te komiti? Tēhea te rangi? [I am speaking. You did not appear before them. Which day did you go before the committee? Which day?]Rt Hon Winston Peters: Don’t use the Māori language not to tell the truth.Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES: You see Winston—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Honourable members it is not permitted for members who do not have the floor to interject on each other. If you want to interject on Dr Sharples that is different because he has the floor. But to interject on each other is not permitted.Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I do not like being accused of using the Māori language because he does not understand it. That is not the case at all. Hoki ki te kura. [Go back to school.]I am deeply honoured to welcome to this House the sons and daughters of Maungapōhatu the children of Hinepūkohurangi and the descendants of Tūhoe-Pōtiki. I am honoured because this landmark legislation concludes its passage in the final weeks of my office as Minister of Māori Affairs. What a privilege to be part of such a historic process. I want to say this part for the benefit of the House because I want it recorded in Hansard in the volumes of this establishment.For the past 26 years since lodging the first of a long series of Treaty claims Tūhoe have resolutely retraced their steps back to a time 118 years ago and this is the irony of today. Back then Tūhoe had within its grasp what no other iwi had been able to obtain under colonial rule: recognition of its right to govern itself and to forge its own destiny. The Urewera District Native Reserve Act 1896 was the culmination of more than 20 years of negotiations between the Crown and Te Whitu Tekau. It enshrined Tūhoe traditional land as a 2650 square kilometre reserve within which title would be determined by a Tūhoe-controlled commission. More important the Act allowed for internal self-government based on Tūhoe customs and protocol. The Urewera reserve was the only autonomous tribal district ever provided for in New Zealand law. But it was too good to last. In utter disregard for its own policies the Government began buying up the very land it was supposed to be protecting. The bold new Act was sidelined undermined and eventually repealed.Today a new dawn has come. It has taken until now to reach the point Tūhoe were at in 1896. Raupatu robbed Tūhoe twice over and made them landlocked and impoverished. I am reading this stuff because I want it recorded. Confiscation of the tribe’s best land was in the view of many a form of looting intended to take the wealth and break the autonomy of Tūhoe. Even when the mistake was realised that the wrong tribe had been punished for rebellion the land was never returned only to result in what some describe as compounding the evil. Historical accounts describe the famines that killed nearly a quarter of the population of Te Urewera in the late 1890s—the legacy of confiscation and military rampages. The devastating revelations captured in four volumes of evidence by the Waitangi Tribunal is an illusion-shattering experience tātou mā. More than a catalogue of unjust acts by successive Governments the evidence reviews a calculated intent to destroy Tūhoe—punishment of the most crippling and permanent kind.After confiscation came invasion. In joining Te Kooti Tūhoe earned the full wrath of the colonial Government. No part of their homeland was left unscathed—no part. Nonchalant inhumanity was standard fare. Scorched earth tactics the execution of unarmed prisoners and the killing of non-combatants was as some described almost a sport. The commander of the Government forces at the time Colonel George Whitmore put it plainly when he remarked: “Well now I am going to punish them. They must be exterminated.”The threat of starvation hung over Tūhoe for much of the early 20th century. It too was a brutal weapon in the Government’s arsenal that was used without hesitation. Whitmore again wrote that when his men were off duty they roamed the country foraging destroying crops and burning kāinga. At Lake Waikaremoana the officer in charge of the expeditionary force gloated that his men had destroyed a quantity of potatoes that would have fed 1000 men for 15 months. It is in the records. Whitmore and his troops were praised for their conspicuous courage. Only now a century and a half later does their conspicuous brutality come to light. I want these things recorded.A new dawn has arrived. This is a settlement to be celebrated: firstly for the Crown’s willingness to negotiate the unique environment of Te Urewera; secondly for the Crown’s readiness to address the formerly politically unpalatable concept of mana motuhake. No other iwi has made mana motuhake a non-negotiable component of its Treaty claim. This settlement is an acknowledgment that Te Urewera has its own identity and its own integrity and cannot be anyone’s possession. I quote lead negotiator Tāmati Kruger who said—and I quote you Tāmati—“My feeling is that the land was here first so nobody owns it. If anything it owns you. The water owns the water the land owns the land. So our proposition to the Government has been ‘let us agree that Te Urewera owns itself’.” This is how the Crown’s settlement with Tūhoe has turned out. Te Urewera’s national park status is to be revoked and the land vested as an independent legal entity under its own Act of Parliament.The settlement is a profound alternative to the human presumption of sovereignty over the natural world. It restores to Tūhoe their role as kaitiaki and it embodies their hopes of self-determination—Tūhoe autonomy for the 21st century Tūhoe services for Tūhoe benefit on Tūhoe terms and Tūhoe living by Tūhoe traditions and Tūhoe aspirations.Tūhoe has always approached resolution with the Crown in a principled and determined manner. Through this settlement the Crown has been given a second chance to work with Tūhoe in an honourable way. I would like to acknowledge Minister Finlayson tōna kaha ki te whai i tēnei kaupapa ahakoa te roa o te whawhai.E Tāmati ki tō tīma tēnei au e mihi atu ki a koe. Ia marama ia marama puta mai koe ki te kōrero ki a mātou ā i konei mātou. Ā Tūhoe kei te tautoko au i a koutou ēngari tae ki te Matatini ā tērā tau kāre au i te tautoko. Hoi anō he mihi atu tēnei tēnā koutou kei raro. [and his perseverance to pursue this matter despite the length of the battle to achieve it.To you and your teamTāmati I congratulate you. Month after month you appeared and engaged with us and we were here. I support you collectivelyTūhoebut come the Matatini next year you won’t have my support. So I congratulate and thank you collectively and sit down.]