te Heuheu Georgina: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20193] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 In relation to the preamble I wanted to take a call to support my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp in so far as he urged that the Government recognise that the preamble was largely the wish of the iwi concerned which is what I took the Minister to say. 
I still think that Dr Mapp had a very valid point. I know from my short experience as an Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations to the Hon Sir Doug Graham that the preamble is extremely important to a claimant tribe for the reason that these settlements are important. For nearly 140 years for some of them they have carried this hurt because that is the way a lot of them see it. They suffered this hurt so long ago and have tried for generations to get redress to find some way of securing justice. Basically they see the preamble as giving credence to the hurt they have carried for many years so it is understandable that all preambles will first of all state the history as has been recounted by the claimant tribe but also will probably reflect a lot of the hurt and the sense of injustice that most tribes have carried since the 1860s. Of course that is why we have the preambles couched in the way they are. 
That is understandable and I appreciate why tribes would want to have their preamble couched in the terms that they normally are. But in support of my colleague Dr Mapp it does not mean that the Crown needs to buy into that mode. While it is proper for the Crown on behalf of New Zealanders to acknowledge the injustice because that is what these claims are about—an injustice to sectors of our community; a longstanding injustice to be rectified—none the less I think there is a point to be made that the Crown needs to try to strike a balance and that there is also an aspirational component to these settlements because that is what they are about too. 
Hopefully settlement legislation brings grievances to an end but it also signals the start of a better future. If as my colleague Dr Mapp has signalled he does not see that necessarily in the preamble then I think that is an issue for the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and the Minister in the chair Mita Ririnui to bear in mind. In the future they should see whether there is a way of stating the history and imparting the deep sense of injustice that particular tribes—in this case Ngati Tuwharetoa Bay of Plenty—feel in relation to what happened to them and to their ancestors so long ago couched in terms that we all genuinely hope will signal that this settlement is the start of movement forward. We should not look like we are just mired in the past because of course nobody is—certainly not members in this Parliament. We in the Parliament more than anybody need to ensure that these settlements project a forward-looking view that they lay the basis for forward momentum for acknowledging and giving credence to the hurt that has been suffered by a particular tribe but also signal our understanding—an aspirational signal—that things will be better and indeed things will be different because what we are doing in this settlement is giving a basis on which to move forward.