Shanks Katrina: Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShanks Katrina: Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9515. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KATRINA SHANKS (National): It is my pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara Claims Settlement Bill today. I would first like to start off by acknowledging the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Finlayson for the hard work he does in these settlement bills and the speed with which he gets them into this House. I would also like to acknowledge the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee Tau Henare. He has always got a focus on getting these bills back into the House as quickly as he possibly can from the select committee and he fast tracks them and prioritises them within the select committee. Thirdly I would like to acknowledge those who have worked tirelessly on this bill from Ngāti Whātua those in the gallery today—thank you for coming down here—and also those who have not been able to make it here today to see the second reading and the Committee stage in this House.I am embarrassed to say I had never been to Kaipara before this settlement process and when the select committee went up there to listen to the submissions I had no idea that it is such a beautiful place—it absolutely is. In fact I nearly did not make it as many other select committee members did not because the GPS cuts out up there and it is quite a hard place to find. I drove up and down the road about five times before I saw this little sign that said “Go this way.” so we got there in the end.There is nothing richer than hearing the stories when you are there—hearing the stories about the vision they had for their future where that vision is and why they have not got there. The stories that we heard were about how they were a very generous iwi and how they had a future gifting land to the council actually. One of the stories was about gifting land to the council. In that gifting of land to the council the iwi gave up that land for settlement. But the council never settled on that land actually and it used it as a reserve. We also heard how the iwi sold land to the Crown so we could go and settle in that land and they could grow their area and prosper. But they sold the land at a very low price and the Crown took advantage of that. So they were a very generous iwi and they had a vision for the future for the area but unfortunately that was not realised. In that process they lost most of their land and became virtually landless by the 1940s.So to me this process is about acknowledging the wrongs of the past by the Crown and offering recompense. That is really important because to me settlements are not only about acknowledging the past and apologising for it but also about the future and the future generations. If we can offer commercial redress to give you some opportunities in the future for economic provisions for the future generations that is a good thing. Part of this settlement is about $22 million in redress and part of that is also the transfer of land. So I look forward to debating this further in the House today and thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on the second reading.