Locke Keith: Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Locke Keith: Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18918] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting the Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill. I am a stand-in today for our fine upstanding member on the Maori Affairs Committee Metiria Turei who did all the hard work on the bill for the Green Party. 
We acknowledge that the Crown and its representatives have breached and continue to breach Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We support the resolution of and restitution for all outstanding historical and contemporary breaches. There needs to be ongoing dialogue on the application of te Tiriti to the settlement process. 
We understand that on one side there are still many hapu and iwi who are unhappy about this bill just as on the other side there are many people who worked very hard to negotiate a settlement through a policy minefield to deliver to their people. Although the bill will deliver to many of the hapu and iwi it will also extinguish some claims and without the consent of the people concerned. The Green Party and Metiria Turei in particular have campaigned on an ongoing basis against that practice because one cannot resolve—particularly in any final form—a matter without the consent of the subgroup that took the claim. 
The Greens have been somewhat critical of the overall Government Treaty settlement process because it is not an optimal or truly just process to restore what Maori lost during the colonisation period. Like the previous speaker Pita Paraone we support the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper relating to Rotorua airport. It is good that it excludes from this bill any idea that local people cannot continue their historical claim concerning airspace issues around Rotorua airport. Metiria fought very hard on this issue at the select committee and was disappointed when she did not appear to be succeeding. It is good that people gained a greater understanding and that—as Pita Paraone has just explained—the Government has come round to her position and will table a Supplementary Order Paper. 
The select committee heard submitters from Ruamata Marae talk about the impacts of the airport on them including cultural degradation and hazardous health and safety issues stemming from the emission of noise fuel residue acoustic vibrations and backdraught from aircraft. Some of the aircraft are quite low-flying. The Ruamata Marae sits at the end of the Rotorua airport runway and the effects on it are serious. In the period before 1992 the ancestral meeting house and associated buildings were relocated only metres away on lower ground as a result of the flight path being designated. The meeting house was deemed by the airport authority to be an obstruction to the flight path. The bodies and bones of the dead were violated as a result of the airport authority ordering earthworks to be done to lower the hill on which the urupa was located. The marae committee went into debt as a result of the Crown taking more than 10 years to reimburse the marae for relocating costs. So it was a rather sorry story that was told to the select committee. 
The marae was particularly concerned about the effects of incoming aircraft which often come in to the runway at no more than 50 feet in the air. People are getting whipped by the backdraught. Even in very important situations where people are burying their dead the backdraught of descending aircraft is hitting them. Having the flight path very close to the marae affects a whole lot of its traditional ceremonies. Karanga whaikorero waiata and wananga are all disrupted by aircraft noise emissions. Because of those things people are deterred from booking the marae for important occasions—birthdays weddings etc.—and that makes it harder for the marae committee to generate an adequate income. There is even talk that the acoustic vibrations tend to loosen the nails on the roof; the people have to knock the nails back in every now and again. The effect is quite significant. Fuel residues from the aircraft are spread on the marae and on the kura grounds; kids use the swimming pool and the kura. The hangi pits at the marae are also affected. 
The situation could become worse if international flights start coming into the airport. The sound levels could go up to 60 decibels. That would be very disruptive to the domestic activities of the marae. If the situation became impossible and the marae were forced out—hopefully it will not be if it pursues its claim—there is apparently no legal obligation on the Crown the airlines or the airport authority to contribute to the cost of relocation. 
It is a rather sad situation. The Supplementary Order Paper is very much warranted and the Greens will strongly support it. Although Metiria Turei is quite proud that after all her pushing the change is being made and a Supplementary Order Paper will be brought in she is somewhat saddened that more could not have been done to improve the bill. Thank you.