Franks Stephen: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:21919] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Before I start may I ask for some guidance. I have assumed that the expanded form of preamble that is now in some of these bills is in fact part of the title. The title used to be called the long title and this is a very very long title. It seems to me that the preamble would not have been debated under any other heading and I propose to address some parts of the preamble. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The preamble has already been agreed to. However the member may wander over any aspect of the bill from the first page to the last—any issue at all. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The debate being a title debate—I understand. The matters I wish to draw attention to are matters that one day will be seen in the same light as the issue that Mr Brownlee has now indicated—and I think the people of New Zealand should be grateful for that—the National Party is starting to treat seriously and that is the language that appears in settlement bills and the importance that that language might have for future generations. We must try to make sure we actually are settling claims and are not simply creating fresh foundation for new claims. 
The title states that the legislation is a settlement and it immediately follows a preamble that recites a series of events in what I imagine the Crown would argue are non-judgmental terms but which I believe future generations will cite as some kind of parliamentary confession. There are statements about facts there and there are statements that are probably highly controversial. 
I do not know whether this particular claim and the lead-up to it were involved but about 8 years ago I was told by one the Crown Law Office people who had been engaged on treaty claims work that when he left he could not stand the work any longer. He had been instructed not to challenge evidence that he knew came from people who were unreliable their having been declared unreliable in completely unrelated court proceedings and he was not allowed to put forward matters that he believed were relevant. I have no idea whether that relates to the Nga Rauru Kitahi claim but I am reminded of it because this title follows a preamble that records that the Crown gave the Waitangi Tribunal an indication of a number of matters on which it would not give evidence. It then recites what undoubtedly were very nasty events 150 years ago. But at the end of it the Crown says that the “disempowerment” recited by the Waitangi Tribunal the “denigration and destruction of Maori autonomy or self-government” is a breach of the treaty and its so-called principles. 
That disempowerment theory that autonomy notion is at odds with the treaty itself. It is at odds with the principles on which any healthy society works. We simply cannot see around the world any prosperous forward-looking healthy society where people spend their time arguing about who has ultimate authority on a race basis. By reciting the disempowerment theory and the autonomy theory in the preamble to this bill the Government is setting this country up for another argument in 20 years’ time. If the money runs out if it is lost if the settlement does not bring a new millennium of prosperity and happiness there will be some people who come back to visit it. A document that purports to be a full settlement should not contain within it by deliberate obfuscation the seeds of more argument. We should know whether this bill is endorsing that tribunal decision. We should know whether this House by simply recording that decision without comment is trying to separate itself from it. I am sure that in 20 years’ time someone will say: “Parliament never meant to endorse it. It simply recited it.” But I believe that it has been put there to mislead the claimants into thinking it is being endorsed and that is wrong. Either it is endorsed or it is not and the legislation should state it. 
The title talks about a settlement but as Mr Brownlee says there will be no true settlement in a document that sets out to try to mean one thing to one side and another thing to the other side—or maybe multiple things. There may be more than two sides here. There may be those who oppose claim settlements on one side and in the middle is the vast body of New Zealanders who want to see injustice remedied who are embarrassed by what happened in Taranaki and who wish they did not have to learn about Parihaka and the treatment of Maori rightly defending their property and existence—their turangawaewae. There is huge goodwill and a huge wish that these things be put behind us. But by recording the autonomy theory and the disempowerment theory—as if disempowerment were itself a breach of the treaty—we are setting up this House this country and this Government to have the next generation come back and say: “Clearly we still don’t have power. Clearly we still don’t have autonomy. Clearly there’s a standing breach of the treaty.” 
I think there are very few if any—perhaps the Green Party—in this Chamber who would agree with that. Perhaps Labour would have agreed until 2 or 3 years ago—until the Orewa speech until Mr Mallard started his review of the effects of race distinctions. I think it is wrong to have a vote on this bill treated as a form of endorsement of a theory that when the Waitangi Tribunal came out with it immediately generated a storm of justified protest. I am not sure whether it was the interim Taranaki report that contained the famous holocaust words—[ 
Interruption 
] It was. Well that is not a report that this House should be reciting in the preamble to legislation as if it were something we endorsed. It was a report that discredited itself by its extremism. I am sure there was some very sound historical work in it but the judgment that was applied to that work by the tribunal in the writing of the report means that it should not be given weight and it should not be recited as if we accepted its authority. It appeared during a period of the tribunal’s outpourings that actually lowered the tribunal’s mana. It meant that the tribunal became something of a mockery after that. The recital of that report as authority immediately precedes the title provision and Parliament is not doing itself any service by passing law in that form. 
The Maori Affairs Committee corrected minor matters of Maori presentation. It went to the trouble of having a translation in the bill rewritten but it did not look at the substance. The substance of the preamble is what people will look at in the future—not whether there was some clumsy translation. 
In this Committee stage I am glad to hear that National is actively considering whether it can vote for the bill as a whole. I urge Mr Brownlee to take into account as well the effect of voting for a bill that implicitly endorses the “holocaust” report because I suggest that that is the effect that will be claimed in terms of recital (18) of the preamble which precedes the title. 
Clause 1 agreed to and clause 2 agreed to. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
Report adopted.