Clendon David: Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Clendon David: Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10837] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kei te mihi nui kei te mihi aroha ki Te Arikinui te Kingi tena koe. Ki nga rangatira ma nga kuia ma ki te mana o te Kingitanga te mana o nga hapu katoa o Waikato-Tainui tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
A huge and loving greeting to you paramount chief the King. To the many chiefs and elderly womenfolk to the sovereignty of the King movement and the authority of all the subtribes greetings salutations and acknowledgments to you all 
.]  
It is a pleasure and a great privilege to stand for the Greens today to speak to and to acknowledge the work that has gone into the Waikato-Tainui Rapuatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill which will be passed today. I acknowledge the sense the wisdom and overall the commitment that has led to the celebration—because today is a celebration—that is emerging through the passing of this bill. 
When Maori assert claims to be kaitiaki of a place it is often seen as an assertion of a right. And indeed it is a right; kaitiaki have rights to places. But what is often overlooked is that it is also an acceptance of a very significant absolute and indeed unavoidable responsibility. I believe that it is that responsibility that sense of duty that drives iwi hapu and whanau to have the determination to maintain the claims to maintain the effort not just for years or decades but over generations. It is that sense of responsibility and duty to our land to our rivers to our mountains and indeed to our whanau that maintains that energy commitment and determination and I offer respect to that. 
There is often confusion and on occasion even mockery of Maori spirituality—the fact that Maori acknowledge Papatuanuku and Ranginui. We talk of the mauri of a river. We populate our motu with atua taniwha and tupuna. One may observe that as numbers of generations of non-Maori spend longer in this place they in their turn develop a sense of place a sense of the value of this place. It goes beyond the ascetic or the amenity and gets closer to the spiritual attachment felt by indigenous peoples for their earth their awa their mountains and their sky. It is to be hoped that this evolving awareness of the value of place and this place will lead to a better understanding and a greater support and recognition of the justice of the restitution that is signified by these settlements. 
Today is an appropriate day to reflect on the language of the Crown apology within the deed of settlement in 1995. The Crown openly acknowledged that the military and the legislative confiscations of Waikato-Tainui land were simply wrong. It was wrong in Maori terms it was wrong in British terms and it was wrong in international law. The language of the apology included a statement that the confiscations have caused Waikato to the present time to suffer feelings in relation to their lost lands akin to those of orphans and that they have had a crippling effect on the welfare economy and development of Waikato. I think the richness of that language reflects not only the damage to the spiritual well-being of people who had their place torn from them but also the fact that it completely destroyed a very viable existing economy an economic base. 
Maori in the Waikato and elsewhere in New Zealand in the 1860s the mid-19th century to some extent were victims of their own success. They adapted very quickly to new crops to new means of producing food and to meeting other needs of the new settlers. Although in some cases there was gratitude from settlers it also led to avarice and to a determination to take those resources away. We know in this case that it led gunboats up the Waikato River. 
Those who would criticise Maori today for being overrepresented in all the negative social statistics either do not know their history or simply choose to overlook that a highly effective highly efficient economy based on the available resources and with well-established use rights was completely shattered through those years. That left Maori in a parlous state. Generations later these settlements are steps towards restoring the capital base the land base that will enable Maori to rebuild on their own terms an economy that meets their cultural and economic needs and that in turn will make massive contributions to the wider New Zealand economy. 
The river the awa the taonga that is being returned today to Waikato-Tainui is in a degraded state. It must be said that the river over many years has been polluted with human waste with trade waste and with waste from agriculture. The water quality has been reduced by overuse. The water has been pumped to Auckland which has offended both Waikato-Tainui and the hapu of Tamaki-makau-rau. It is important to acknowledge that there has been a great lack of care and respect for this taonga and that there is now a positive step towards restoring management which will be coming from a sense of aroha of caring—a sense of respect care and commitment to improving the status of that water. 
During an earlier reading of this bill I spoke of the strength and the power of the co-management model. I will not repeat what I said then except to say that the co-management structure the authority that has been established represents a great generosity of spirit on the part of Waikato-Tainui who could legitimately claim sole rights to manage and to utilise that treasure that resource. It is that generosity of spirit which is typical of most of indeed all the settlements that has enabled Maori to be willing to compromise to accept the realities of the 21st century and to take back in good spirit and in good heart what is offered and to make those arrangements with the Crown. 
I do not wish to cloud what is undoubtedly a day to celebrate but it must be acknowledged that the settlement process is still an imperfect and flawed process. It appears that in almost every case of settlement there is a rightful return of lands to people but also there can be another confiscation of lands. The settlement process too often fails to recognise the rights of smaller iwi and hapu to their tino rangatiratanga and to their kaitiakitanga and fails to return land taken wrongfully and often violently to those from whom it was taken. The settlement process itself is in need of review in order to improve the redress and to avoid further breaches of the rights of those people. 
But today indeed is a day of celebration. It is a day that demonstrates that New Zealanders Maori and non-Maori can come to these arrangements can meet each other’s needs and requirements and can acknowledge each other’s rights. In that sense I will finish my statement by again complimenting Waikato-Tainui and indeed the Crown the Government negotiators and those who have committed time intelligence and energy to this process. Kia ora koutou. Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.