Mark RonHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): I'd like to start with: e Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Ki ngā uri o Ngāti Rangi tēnā koutou katoa. He nui aku mihi mahana ngā mihi maioha me ngā mihi aroha hoki ki a koutou. Nau mai ki tēnei Whare ki Te Whare Pāremata nau mai haere mai ki te Poneke nau mai haere mai ki te rohe o Atiawa tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora koutou katoa. [Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Greetings to you all the descendants of Ngāti Rangi. I extend a warm sincere and heartfelt greeting to you all. Welcome to this House to this House of Parliament welcome welcome to Wellington welcome to tribal district of Atiawa greetings one greetings all.]It is a pleasure actually to be able to address Ngāti Rangi here again this afternoon and this time we're on the second reading of their claims settlement bill. I recall speaking in the first reading some time ago and before I go any further in talking to the bill I just want to acknowledge and pay tribute to Ngāti Rangi's steadfastness and their graciousness throughout the entire settlement process. I also want to acknowledge the members of the Māori Affairs Committee who I think have done a good job regardless of which party they are. The select committee process when you're hearing settlements can sometimes be challenging especially when you have submissions from other iwi other Māori who do not share the same view of that which the Crown has reached with the claimants—in this case Ngāti Rangi. I want to acknowledge the current Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Hon Andrew Little and I want to acknowledge also the Hon Chris Finlayson. As one who was a lead negotiator for Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-ā-Rua I greatly appreciated the manner in which the Hon Chris Finlayson engaged in those negotiations and I have no doubt Ngāti Rangi that you will have had a similar relationship and working relationship and respectful relationship both with Mr Finlayson and with Mr Little.I want to acknowledge humbly the contribution and sacrifice Ngāti Rangi have made to New Zealand and to the Crown over many generations. The history of Ngāti Rangi and its engagement with the Crown has always been honourable from Ngāti Rangi's side of the table at least. Standing as the Minister of Defence and Minister for Veterans Affairs right now as the spokesman for New Zealand First and as a former serviceman myself of 20 years' military experience and a veteran I acknowledge with respect and humility the contribution that many members of Ngāti Rangi have made to the security and stability of this nation and the contribution that Ngāti Rangi's ancestors made in those early times of which this bill speaks and seeks to redress.I also want to—as one who has worked through the difficulties of a Treaty settlement process—acknowledge the trials and tribulations that Ngāti Rangi have endured as they've worked through that process which is a process laid down by the Crown which in itself brings some challenges. I know from having personally experienced it.I want to also acknowledge that this journey would have been made difficult at times as people who held the knowledge passed; as people who were engaged in lodging the claim and pursuing that claim passed before it even got to the mandate phase; and all of those subsequent people of Ngāti Rangi who are not able to be here at this point in time but who are so very very much part of the claim the history the whakapapa the trials and tribulations that Ngāti Rangi endured. So I mihi to those that have passed on and acknowledge them.As I said in the first reading much of what I've read about Ngāti Rangi's claims and much of what I heard when I had the privilege of being with you in March last year I think it was has a very clear parallel with many other settlements that have come through this House. I guess in the negotiation phase the Crown is always looking—it knows that there's a baseline because things happen throughout New Zealand to differing iwi that were the same. But the parallels with Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa are very strikingly similar. The nullification of leasehold agreements—legal agreement struck between Ngāti Rangi and settlers—is exactly what Governor Grey did in the Wairarapa.The fact that Ngāti Rangi's ancestors were so visionary and forward thinking about how land should be held and how land should be not so much sold but leased to people that it might be developed that Ngāti Rangi would gain from the injection and infusion of other thinking other skills from the settlers in particular that that would bring economic opportunity and advancement is exactly what happened in the Wairarapa. The fact that a Government or a Governor of the day should see fit to step over the top of that and quash it—I wonder today when I hear certain people railing against Treaty settlement claims and so often from the right of the right how they would react to the cancelling of property rights today if that were happening today and what sorts of settlements they would seek in the courts against the Crown today.There is no way that the Treaty settlement process can ever compensate Ngāti Rangi for those quashed leases that had a pound value at that time and which are quite capable of being extrapolated through mathematically to produce a 2019 figure as to what the loss was. There's no way the Crown can compensate for that and it makes it clear that it won't and can't. But again the graciousness shown by Ngāti Rangi in accepting that there has to be a settlement and it's falling down where you have negotiated speaks more—some would argue—of Ngāti Rangi than it does of the Crown and I acknowledge that.The interesting things about the situation with Ruapehu I liken to what happened with Wairarapa Moana. The power development projects which we all benefit from today—all of us the whole of New Zealand—I liken to what happened to Kahungunu with the rail project that actually didn't go ahead in the end and they sold off the land anyway. I liken the contribution through the military—and I wish to acknowledge as part of the cultural settlement the gifting back of Irirangi to Ngāti Rangi and then the gifting back of Irirangi again by Ngāti Rangi back to the Crown and back to the Defence Force. Can I acknowledge that and thank you very much.It does sort of raise those memories in the Wairarapa of land that was taken for rail and then was converted into ballot farms and given to non-Māori soldiers who returned from the First World War when none were given to Māori soldiers. It raises those thoughts in my mind again. I think of the Whangaehu which I have been wet and cold in often as a soldier and I think of the Ruamāhanga in the Wairarapa because the claims are so similar as to what happened.I conclude on behalf of New Zealand First by proudly saying to Ngāti Rangi that it is a pleasure to be able to stand here and support your second reading. We thank you for your graciousness we thank you for your tolerance and we wish you well as this bill progresses through to the third reading and look forward to seeing you back here again for that in due course. Kei te mihi.