Roche Denise: Ngai Tamanuhiri Claims Settlement Bill Ngati Makino Claims Settlement Bill — First Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roche Denise: Ngai Tamanuhiri Claims Settlement Bill Ngati Makino Claims Settlement Bill — First Readings 
[Sitting date: 16 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:554. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENISE ROCHE (Green) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. We Pakeha often look the same! Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou. E nga rangatira o Ngati Makino nau mai haere mai ki konei. E nga rangatira o Ngai Tamanuhiri tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to you collectively greetings greetings. Welcome to the leaders of Ngati Makino welcome here. Greetings collectively as well to you the leaders of Ngai Tamanuhiri greetings greetings 
.] 
This is my first time as well standing after my maiden speech and I am privileged to be speaking on these bills tonight the Ngai Tamanuhiri Claims Settlement Bill and the Ngati Makino Claims Settlement Bill. I acknowledge all the statements that have gone before me and I particularly want to mihi to Nanaia Mahuta about the building of nationhood and the importance of the passing of these settlements which will do that for our country of Aotearoa.  
The Green Party has a story that we want to tell. It is basically about our relationship with Ngai Tamanuhiri. This is not to disrespect the settlement process that is going through for Ngati Makino but there has been a personal relationship that we want to outline. The $12 million settlement can be described really as a deal but not a settlement. The people from Muriwai and the rohe katoa have negotiated a deal and we have been told by some that it was a valuable process in terms of reaffirming their own story but it is a deal. It is what they could get. Settlement means when all the dust has been laid to rest; there is still dust floating in the clouds around Te Kuri a Paoa. It is not for the Green Party to say what should have been included in that settlement—that is your story; that is the work that you have been doing for decades and decades—but we do have a story that we want to acknowledge.  
Ngai Tamanuhiri say that when Capitain Cook’s and Young Nick’s ship entered the bay at Turanga-nui-a-Kiwa they became the front line of the historical mythology of how this country was colonised. Their maunga—Te Kuri a Paoa—was renamed Young Nicks Head by Captain Cook. The appropriation of Te Kuri a Paoa did not stop there and that is how the Green Party through my colleague Catherine Delahunty and her partner Gordon Jackman became involved supporting the 21st century struggle of Ngai Tamanuhiri to stop the sale of Te Kuri a Paoa to a New York stockbroker called John Griffin.  
The maunga had been in Pakeha hands for many years as a farm and when the Coop family decided to sell it Ngai Tamanuhiri sought desperately for the money to make an offer to regain their maunga. In 2002 the Greens supported their occupation of the pa site Rangihoua and Green MPs at the time Rod Donald Nandor Tanczos and our co-leader Metiria Turei all visited the occupation if you can call sitting on your own maunga such a thing. Current Green MP Catherine Delahunty and Gordon Jackman also supported the Ngai Tamanuhiri hikoi to Wellington to fight for the opportunity for purchase. A ghastly compromise meant that some of the wahi tapu would be kept as public land and access to them acknowledged while most of the maunga was sold to Mr Griffin. Foreign ownership of an iconic landmark was a national disgrace as well as a breach of te Tiriti but Mr Griffin had the most money. Under this bill Ngai Tamanuhiri regain the pa site on the maunga Rangihoua and the cliff-face is gifted to the nation in recognition of history. Their generosity is greater than anything ever shown to you as a people in this painful story but the pa site is an important and significant inclusion.  
The Green Party still believes that foreign ownership of sacred maunga is an abuse of te Tiriti and we regret that the settlement process amounts to a partial redress of a deep hara. The access to fighting grounds of ancient value and current needs is via the permission of the American stockbroker and his farm manager—it is goodwill. It is good that the forestry lands on Wharerata will be available to purchase now to Ngai Tamanuhiri but at market rates. We stole your whenua and now you can buy it back at market rates—that is the deal. Take it or leave it!  
There is more to be said on this history but at first reading we simply wish to acknowledge the people of Muriwai the rohe and also Te Kuri a Paoa where the pou was placed by the people during the protests and where it still stands in the winds always belonging to mana whenua whatever the outcome of the process. And so it will always stand. We acknowledge the journey that you have yet to go. We will support this bill. We recognise that it does not meet the full redress and that is something we are concerned about but we support you. No reira tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.