Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. I would really like to put out a heartfelt thanks to Maniapoto for the special event that we held at dawn this morning. It was such a pleasure to be there and I want to thank Teanau Tuiono for helping me. I'm not one of those in the House that has great te reo but between Teanau and Tāmati Coffey they helped me through a few things and it's like who am I as Ngāti Pākehā" to be here standing here talking to you? But you're in my heart. I really felt in my heart what happened this morning and it was absolutely beautiful and it was such a pleasure to be there. I also want to acknowledge the gift of the taonga that you are going to trust Parliament with for a period of five years. That's a big call because this is not a place that Maniapoto or many other iwi have any reason to trust. I think that all of the dialogue that's gone in the past few years in terms of getting to this place has been building trust and I really want to thank you for that opportunity.It's been a very long road for you and it's also been a very difficult year for you because earlier in the year when I went to the signing of the deed of settlement most of Te Kūiti had COVID a lot of Ōtorohanga had COVID and there were only a few people here that could actually participate in that very significant event and that was noted. But goodness haven't we noticed you all arriving here today and I am really taken by the way you've arrived on that train. With all of the injustices that have been done to you through building that main trunk line you've come here today and you've shown this country that Maniapoto is back so good on you. I also just wanted to say that I want to acknowledge the loss of the Queen and I want to acknowledge that there has been substantial reorganisation in your path to get here as you were supposed to be here a week ago and the death of the Queen has actually delayed that. I would like to mention her passing and acknowledge the new King. But what I would also say is that while we're changing a few things in this country and Queen's Counsel are turning into King's Counsel and we'll be looking at banknotes and all of those sorts of things as to how we develop in the new world the King Country was the King Country and your rohe is the King Country and so no name changes up there—you can be very proud of where we all come from.I would like to acknowledge first of all the Hon Chris Finlayson who's now a KC for starting this work and going out to the beautiful place of Kāwhia—the King Country and the Maniapoto area is really one of the most beautiful areas in this country—and starting that work. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for the work she did through this process—incredibly she is one of the people that got us to where we are today—and then of course the Hon Andrew Little for coming through and finishing this process with you. It's always a beautiful time in the House when we do Treaty settlements. It's always very emotional and most of the time what you see in this House can be fairly argy-bargy but what I love is the collective agreement of how everybody works together to make these days very peaceful and heartfelt.I'm not going to go through some of the history because I could never could portray the history like Tom Roa portrays the history. Watching a programme on television recently and the stories that come together—I just feel your pride today and I feel the way that we've acted together. But what I would like to acknowledge is all of you. I would like to acknowledge Tiwha Bell and the other person I would like to acknowledge while I'm acknowledging Tiwha is Leah Bell. So in my first year in Parliament—it's eight years this week since I arrived here—the first Youth MP that I had was Leah Bell and Leah did you all proud. She was a wonderful Youth MP to have. I bumped into her recently in the street and I had a chat and she really carries your mana extremely well and it gives me great pleasure in knowing that your wonderful younger people—and we saw some of them this morning—are going to keep everything up with the mana of you all. I'd also like to acknowledge Keith Ikin who's come in more recently and taken over and all of you that have been involved. It's been no easy path and there's obviously been some give and take along the way and I—it's always a deficient moment when we do these Treaty settlements because the generosity. We can never make up for what happened—none of us in here can ever make up for it—and it always strikes me as very generous of anyone who settles in this way because we can't make up for everything that has been lost but what we can do is we can move forward together. I've only known a number of you for about eight years and many of you I still have to get to know and the last 2½ years of COVID has made it much more difficult for us to interact with each other but I want to just mention the apology because that's really important. When we did the Parihaka settlement that was really interesting for me because I went to school with a lot of those people. I always think back to those days—when we were at school no one ever talked about it. It was almost like it was history. It was buried it was done no one talked about it and we always knew that Parihaka was up that road. None of us ever knew the significance of it we didn't know what it was for and I just thank goodness every day that we're starting to make progress and we're coming a long way in interacting as people together. So while I don't have the long association with Maniapoto as I do with Parihaka in Taranaki where I come from I've certainly appreciated the eight years so far that I've been able to interact with many of you and I think what's going to happen from here on in—obviously some of these sites that are associated with this and that you've negotiated in this piece of legislation are wonderful. You know Kāwhia Harbour the most beautiful place in the world; the Marokopa Falls scenic reserve—I mean I'm not going to read all these out but there's just some fantastic places in here. I think probably the places that we speak about less favourably over the years are places like Tokanui which were taken. The history of that place is nothing to be excited about. There are a lot of sad memories for people who went through in a time in our history when we actually didn't understand mental wellbeing as well as we currently do. It was an awful time.So it'll be great seeing all the work going on to restore what has been settled and I look forward to working together for you. I'm sure from now on in every time I sit in Stoked Eatery and the train goes past it's going to bring back memories of today and this morning. I think it's just absolutely fantastic that you've all arrived and that you've all been able to get here. With that I'm just going to say well done congratulations thank you and let's move on with the future and find some great opportunities together. Thank you."