Paraone PitaPITA PARAONE (NZ First): Ā tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker tenā tātou o Te Whare tēnā hoki koutou e whakarongo mai nā i ēnei kōrero e pā ana ki te pire e kī nei te New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill.[And so thank you Mr Deputy Speaker and to us the House; salutations as well to you there collectively listening in to these contributions about this bill here called the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill.]For those of you who are listening and do not understand Māori I am just acknowledging the people of Te Atiawa Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua—that this is their bill that it has come before the House as part of the process and that it is in its second reading.This bill is a reminder to this country of the dark history of Aotearoa. I do not need to articulate anything more about that history other than to note that the people of Taranaki suffered not only loss of life but a grave injustice—suffice to say. And I need to put in a plug here: on 28 October in the North we will be commemorating the New Zealand Land Wars. So we are starting the process. I do not know where it will be next year but it will be in Tai Tokerau on 28 October and it coincides with the signing of the Declaration of Independence and that is causing some discussion at home.Be that as it may back to the bill it involves land that is very important to particularly the people of Waitara. I want to say that New Zealand First has certainly looked at the intent of the bill and we have no difficulty with that. We have provided a minority view and it covers two issues. One is that we believe that the remedy of the damage referred to to the river should be something that should be picked up by central government. I note from today's New Zealand Herald that there is a comment here River clean up: Around 100 New Zealand rivers will be cleaned up with the help of $44 million in grants the Government announced yesterday afternoon." Having read that the first question that I ask myself is whether the Waitara River will be a recipient of part of that fund. If it is then that would make available the funds that will be drawn from the income of the lease properties available to the subcommittee that has the responsibility of recommending the purchase or otherwise of the lease land as they come up for sale. So that is something that I think will be subject to a Supplementary Order Paper from New Zealand First.The other thing that has always been an issue for us is the membership of the subcommittee representing both the regional council and iwi. The bill actually refers to members nominated by the council. That could be anyone but if the nominations are to be councillors who have been elected on to council then we certainly have a difficulty about the non-council membership of that committee not being subject to the same process. So I would just signal that but I think that the fact that the bill was referred to the Māori Affairs Committee was a very wise decision of this House. It just re-emphasises to me the importance of things Māori being referred to the Māori Affairs Committee and the fact that the people of New Zealand and of this House should not be afraid of things that clearly have some impact on Māori being referred to the Māori Affairs Committee.The acknowledgment of previous speakers of the work that the committee has done is testament to the fact that the Māori Affairs Committee certainly has the capacity to do so. The work done by officials—and reference has been made to Ms Nashwa; I will just refer to her as Nashwa. The work that she has done is testament to the work that she has certainly done not only for this case but obviously for other work on behalf of the Office of Treaty Settlements. I just want to join with previous speakers in acknowledging her in that respect.The other thing is that I want to acknowledge Mr Young and I think that he has done a good job in shepherding the bill through the House and he is an example of a member of Parliament actually representing and assisting his community—two things that I think that all members of this House should be responsible for.There is not too much else that I would like to comment on at this stage other than to just reiterate that our position at this stage will be to abstain in terms of the bill but we recognise that although this is not a Treaty of Waitangi settlement bill it certainly has some association with Treaty settlements. I can recall in the 48th or 47th Parliament where Ngāti Mutunga came before the Māori Affairs Committee—these two young gentlemen representing their iwi and being awarded only $14 million. I can remember quite clearly asking them: "Why aren't you asking for more given the history of colonisation in that area?". And I can remember them quite clearly saying to me: "Pita the problem with us is we don't have the same political influence as other iwi." And I knew what he was referring to. He was referring to Tai Tokerau who had Sir Graham Latimer God rest his soul and then we had Tainui with Koro Wētere and others. And here were these two young men representing their iwi making that plea. But suffice to say that those same young men are today leaders within the Māori world and I am talking about Jamie Tuuta and his cousin Dion Tuuta. I will never forget these two young men with all their kaumātua and kuia sitting in the back putting their faith in them. I believe this bill is similar to the people of Waitara putting their faith in this bill to address a situation that has been with them for quite a long time. I think that to a certain extent while the original Māori owners do not get exactly what they want this bill goes a long way to achieving (1) their desire to have the land returned to them and (2) the allocation of those funds that they draw from those leaseholds being utilised to do what they would like it to do. So without further ado I again say that we will abstain but that does not mean to say that we do not believe in the intent of the bill. Kia ora."