Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party as the National Party's spokesperson for Treaty negotiations to speak on the Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua Claims Settlement Bill for its second reading following the select committee process.This has been a challenging bill in a number of respects and the Māori Affairs Committee on which I sit has heard a significant number of submissions on this bill. There has been a total of 173 submissions on the bill; of those 93 were in opposition and nine had no position. Many of those submissions were mainly in relation to remedies litigation and the inclusion of Wai 85 and Wai 429 claims in the bill while this is still subject to litigation in the courts. The National Party had concerns which we expressed in the select committee report back to the House in respect of extant proceedings in the Supreme Court that have not yet been decided upon or where the Supreme Court has not yet released a decision. The advice from the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee was that legislation should not generally interfere with the judicial process particularly if there are cases before the courts and that good legislative design will say that if legislation is being considered that may overturn a court decision or alter the law at issue in existing proceedings such legislation needs to be justified as being in the public interest and no more than is reasonably necessary to serve that interest.Having said that the National Party is very much supportive of Ngāti Kahungunu having its claims settled. It has been a longstanding policy of this Parliament through different iterations of Government that these matters should be settled in what's called the large natural group policy involving a process of comprehensive Treaty settlements. This has been the way these settlements have been dealt with and have been resolved over many many years in this House and the National Party is very much supportive of that process. So the National Party will be supporting this bill through the House but we will be putting on record some concerns in respect of the way that this has proceeded. I do note however that the issues before the Supreme Court are whether the mana whenua position at Pouākani constrains the tribunal recommending transfer to Wairarapa Māori and what Crown conduct is relevant to the tribunal's decision whether to apply a penalty interest rate to see if there was land compensation under the Crown Forest Assets Act.The basis of the appeals to the Supreme Court does not bear however upon the essential finding of the Waitangi Tribunal that the assets are a disproportionate remedy for the Wai 85 and Wai 429 claims and that the incorporation's structure makes an inappropriate recipient of resumable assets with shareholdings rather than whakapapa determining the level of benefit. I note that the point regarding the assets being a disproportionate remedy for the Wai 85 and Wai 429 claims was not appealed. In effect what we would see here is that even if there were to be success at the Supreme Court on the issues that have been appealed regarding the mana whenua position that would mean that the matter has to be remitted back to the Waitangi Tribunal and what would be sought there would be to obtain a different decision from the Waitangi Tribunal from the one originally given on the issue of the resumable assets being disproportionate to the claims brought by the Wai 85 and Wai 429 claimants. So there is real public interest here in these matters being resolved. Ngāti Kahungunu have made it very clear that they want to see this resolved and completed so that they can move on with obtaining better outcomes for their people.In respect of the Wai 429 claim it's been made clear to us in the information given to the select committee that Ngāi Tūmapuhia-ā-Rangi are not the only hapū with interests in the Ngāumu Forest and the settlement trust are prepared to work with the hapū to ensure they have kaitiaki rights in the areas of Ngāumu that they have the strongest interests in. And I note that while the tribunal considered that the Crown had engaged in a flawed and unfair process in proceeding to settlement the Crown does need to balance a range of often competing interests including prejudice from further delay to the interests of the broader iwi who support the settlement and others such as Rangitāne and Raukawa affected by the ongoing litigation.It is certainly true that the reality is that in almost every Treaty settlement there is disagreement both within the settling group and between the settling group and those overlapping interests and the path to settlement is rarely smooth; it is often fraught and a desire to fully resolve every dispute about the best way to settle claims—in particular in this case as to whether the tribunal's recommendation or a negotiated settlement is the better course—must be balanced against the real risk of endless delay to deserved redress. The Minister the Hon Andrew Little did explain to the parties—and he explained to the House today—why in his view the balance is in favour of ending further delay and bringing the effects of comprehensive Treaty of Waitangi settlement redress to all of Ngāti Kahungunu and that this has guided the decision to proceed to introduce and to take this bill through the House. There is real benefit to Ngāti Kahungunu in that and something that the National Party is very much in support of is Ngāti Kahungunu being able to come to finality on its Treaty claim.In respect of another issue that was raised I acknowledge that members of Rangitāne made a number of submissions about whakapapa and the attribution of specific hapū to Ngāti Kahungunu in this bill based on subsequent intermarriage of Rangitāne tīpuna with Kahungunu. And given that both Ngāti Hāmua and Ngāti Te Rangiwhaka-ewa are already listed in the Rangitāne Tū Mai Rā (Wairarapa Tamaki nui-ā-Rua) Claims Settlement Act 2017 we certainly hope that can be fully recorded and publicly available during this current process to provide context for all members of these hapū because I note those two hapū are both in Rangitāne's settlement Act of 2017 and also in the present bill before the House. There are differing views of that and those have been reflected in the two settlement Acts—in this case a bill that will become an Act.So I do certainly acknowledge and thank all of the people who did make their submissions to the select committee. I can assure them that they have been very carefully considered by the members of the select committee and by the National Party. We do wish to see this proceed in a way that can settle all of the issues for members of Ngāti Kahungunu and ultimately look towards the future to unlock the economic potential and boost the area of interest for Ngāti Kahungunu noting the great contribution that that iwi makes to this country. I will have an opportunity to speak in more detail on other aspects of this bill at the third reading and with that I will say that the National Party does recommend this bill to the House.