Harawira Hone: Maori Purposes Bill — In Committee 
Harawira Hone: Maori Purposes Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:636;Page:6979] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Madam Chair. Kia ora tatau katoa e korerotia nei nga korero mo te kaupapa nei. 
[ 
Greetings to us all debating this matter 
.] 
I very rarely agree with my whanaunga from Matauri but I would like to stand here tonight and record for  
Hansard 
 my support for his recommendation that the closing-off date for Treaty settlements be 2100. Me mihi atu ki a koe Dover e whakatakoto i tera korero roto i te Whare nei. 
[ 
I salute you Dover for making that statement in this Chamber. 
] 
But on a more serious note I come back to a general question which I address to all Maori in this Chamber. It is a simple question: do they believe—and I ask them to raise their hands if they do—that their tupuna thought there would be a deadline for Treaty settlements? What I thought would be the case is so; none of us believes that our tupuna thought that. Let the record show that neither the Minister of Maori Affairs nor any other Labour Party Maori MP put up a hand. Neither did the translators the officials nor anybody else in this Chamber. So while we are here talking about a closing-off date for Treaty settlements no Maori in this Chamber believes that any of their tupuna thought there should be one. 
That being the case I ask myself what the rush is. The Treaty was never meant to have a deadline although if it is to have a cut-off date then I do support the Green Party spokesperson’s suggestion that it be 2050 because if the statistics are right by 2050 we will be halfway there and when that bill comes up in 2050 it will be out the back door as quick as look at you. So kia kaha ratou te moe tahi te hanga i te iwi kia pai te ahua o tenei Whare. 
[ 
I encourage them to wed each other and to create a race that will enhance this Parliament. 
] 
The Treaty was not about a deadline. There was no end date. Our tupuna had no expectation that there would be an end to their claims to rangatiratanga an end to their rangatiratanga runga i wa ratou whenua ngahere moana me wena atu o nga taonga o Te Ao Maori. 
[ 
self-determination over their lands forests waterways and those other treasures of Maoridom. 
] 
There was no expectation by Parekura’s ancestors—or Dover’s Dave’s Clem’s Pita’s Metiria’s Georgina’s Te Ururoa’s or mine—that their rangatiratanga would come to a end on any particular date. I know this to be true as do all of the other Maori in this Whare. If Governor Hobson had said: “You can have your rangatiratanga but on a certain date it’s all going to come to an end.” then how many people would have signed the Treaty? It would have been the same number of people as the number who put up their hands in the Chamber tonight—none. 
The Treaty is about our management of our resources both Pakeha and Maori. The Treaty talks about dispute resolution about rights of citizenship and about governance. It does not talk about an end date for any one of those things. 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: Nobody knew it was going to be broken. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: The fact that it was broken is even more reason for it never to be ended. We need to fight to have it validated and if that fight should go on forever then it will go on forever. 
If there is to be an end date then let that end date be for compensation claims not settlement claims. It should be for claims of compensation only. I referred back to the historical claims that have been settled to date and found that in every case the Crown never offered more than 3 percent of the value of any one of those claims. And in respect of every one of those claims the Crown never settled for more than 2.8 percent of those claims. Even to assume that we as Maori in this Parliament could accept that historical claims should be settled by 2008 is to assume that our tupuna would want us to give that away that our tupuna would accept that we could give away our children’s and our grandchildren’s rights to the resources—what little they are—we ourselves enjoy today. 
I welcome Georgina te Heuheu back to her post. It is good to see her back there on behalf of the National Party. 
Like Metiria Turei I also say that settlement in haste is settlement without justice and rushing forward into 2008 will not resolve any of these issues. I do not know that Maori people think they have this big problem hanging over their heads and that they want it settled fast. Certainly I think they want compensation they want what is due and they want it now. But that is not to say that they want their historical claims settled forever by 2008. I know absolutely that if the Maori members in this Parliament were to go traipsing around the country on a tour and were to put that case to Maori the reply would be a resounding: “No thanks!”. So let us not con ourselves in this Parliament that there is any expectation on behalf of Maori that 2008 comes even close to being a rational date for the settlement of claims. 
The level of opposition in the submissions on the Maori Purposes Bill on this particular matter is huge—80 percent of submissions from Maori are opposed to the 2008 settlement date. I heard my whanaunga over there from Ngati Hine talking about how the matter needs to be settled in order to move the nation forward but we cannot move the nation forward if people have been stolen from. We cannot move forward with justice without settling justly—and a 3 percent settlement is not a just claim in anyone’s books. There is not a person in this Chamber who would accept a 3 percent settlement on just about anything—except in a tsunami. 
I tell folks that we in this Parliament can do better—not just for Maori but for this nation—by realising that trying to force an early settlement of Treaty claims is simply denying reality which is that Parekura Horomia’s children along with my children and the grandchildren of all of us Maori in this House will continue to actively fight for the settlement of their claims in their time. And the Maori Party stands here to serve notice to the rest of this Parliament that we will support them every step of the way. 
Me mihi atu ki a tatou tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa.