Fox MaramaMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker—I will get off my phone—ā nei te mihi atu ki a koe otirā ki tēnei pire [and so I acknowledge you but at the same time this bill].It was a very interesting debate that was had around this bill in regard to the right of first refusal (RFR) land. I want to acknowledge the officials from the Office of Treaty Settlements (OTS). To be sure the Crown is very good at negotiating now. It has had lots of practice at it. Things that may have been agreed to back in the day with other bigger iwi are no longer agreed to. Those provisions are no longer provided for because our negotiators on behalf of the Crown have got very good at it. That is how they do their job. But we got to a debate about the RFR lands. RFR stands for first right of refusal. That is what we call those rights but in fact we discovered they were not. They were sixth right of refusal. There was a whole list of other people who went through the process if you wanted to get some land back. There is a whole list of people that they go through including charities—charities; any charity. It could be the Fox Foundation for Advancing Little Foxes". It could be any charity. We do not believe and we did not believe that the Foxes should have any greater right than the tangata whenua to have that land back in redress.So the Māori Affairs Committee itself made note and I want to read from the committee's report. It says "Te Tāwharau argued that the clause is unfair because: the RFR properties in question were not gifted to the Crown"—the land was confiscated in case people did not understand that—"[the] Crown-owned land continues to be available for charitable purposes" and "Crown is not acting in good faith when it offers these lands as redress but may ignore this redress in favour of any charitable organisation"—including the Fox one—"it decides should receive the land instead consequently placing the land out of reach of the iwi." We suggested as a committee that that clause clause 103 should be removed and charitable organisations unless they are charitable organisations of the iwi should not be able to have RFR land offered to them before the iwi.And why should they? These lands were confiscated and again by its own admission the Crown said they were confiscated unfairly through raupatu following a war that the Crown initiated. The Crown initiated the war. This was not Māori people in the backwoods somewhere picking fights with settlers. Simply because they refused to sell their land the Crown initiated war against them and then confiscated the entirety of all their landholdings. This settlement is for approximately $8680000 if I added those numbers up correctly from the previous speaker's comments. Landless—they are sixth on the list behind a whole group of other people and charities and their land was taken by confiscation after a war that the Crown initiated on them for refusing to sell their land. Ngāti Pūkenga did not even take part in the war. They respected their commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi. So the war that was carried out in the Tauranga Moana area: they did not even take part in it and still their land was confiscated—still it was. In fact it was said here: "The Crown acknowledges that despite it leading Te Tāwera and Ngāti Pūkenga to believe their interests would be scrupulously respected the confiscation/raupatu at Tauranga Moana and the Tauranga District Lands Act 1867 and 1868 unjustly extinguished the customary [right and] title of Te Tāwera and Ngāti Pūkenga". And there it is. It actually did return some land but it did not return it to the people. It returned it to individuals. It returned 98 acres—98.5 acres actually but they were returned to individuals and again their cultural interests in the land were lost.This is at the heart of this and the issues that are going on in Tauranga Moana right now. They signed this Treaty settlement in 2013 and the redress will never match the hurt. The redress will never compensate for what was done. I will say it again: the biggest gift that Māori give to this nation is accepting Treaty settlement at all—at all.Ngāti Pūkenga lost their land. They were dispersed between four small and scattered kāinga not even on their own land and since 2010 the matakahi the tribe's negotiating team worked tirelessly to protect their interest. Matakahi is a traditional war movement; it is the wedge formation to split the enemy's ranks and they were formidable. They carried out their wedge negotiation: Rāhera Ōhia Shane Ashby Harry Mīkaere Āreta Gray Dominic Wilson and the late Te Awanuiārangi Black. Three years of negotiating and OTS you guys are pretty good at negotiating now—the Crown we are pretty good but they are pretty good because they have history on their side. They have truth on their side. They have pain and hurt and now when they sign these settlements they move from being parties of protest to parties of progress and they take their people forward accepting that $7 million and then a little bit more for this and a little bit more for that is never going to be good enough. It is never going to be good enough but they accept it anyway and they gird up their loins and they take a step into the future and they get their people together.And you know what? Awanuiārangi and Tommy Kapai Wilson they had a whare that they called their dreaming whare—they called it something. That is not what they called it—the right to dream the "Minister of Dreams". They would sit there and they would talk about the future and their aspirations and they let their dreams fly. This is what we can do. This is where we can take our people. When he passed away at his tangi the people the warriors who came out said: "It's OK. His No. 1 goal was to grow the puna—grow the puna of reo grow the puna of knowledge grow the puna of cultural history of cultural action of traditions of revitalisation—and he did." They all did because they dared to dream. Despite what had happened to them and their people at no fault of their own ever they dared to dream and they moved forward into the future. So I am proud to stand here today as part of the Māori Affairs Committee recognising the work of the Minister of OTS and of our chair and our committee to support this whānau to this point. Despite the pitiful pittance of a settlement that they will receive they accept it and they move on. They are grateful and they hold their heads up because they are resilient and they are strong and they stand in the traditions of their ancestors and tell the world that we rise. No matter what happens we rise. E te iwi tēnā tātou katoa."