Smith Murray: Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Smith Murray: Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4940] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I have a lot of difficulty in understanding the Greens’ position. It seems to me that I hear a lot of problems from them and not too much in the way of solutions. The question is: how long do we as a nation—that is Maori as well as non-Maori—really want the treaty settlement process to continue? How long do we want to keep on debating treaty grievances before we move on as a nation having put that part of our history behind us once and for all? I find extreme difficulty with the proposed amendment that would make the settlement not a full and final settlement. That simply says for us to give them some money now and in fact invite them to come back again and ask for more. I think it is in everybody’s interests that we to try to get these proceedings out of the way get a resolution resolve the issues and move on. 
I am aware that there were concerns from Tangahoe and Pakakohi in terms of their legitimate representation. It appears that in all those grievances there will always be a minority view that does not agree with the way the settlement is going to go. In fact in this settlement we have one of the highest proportions of agreement: 87.8 percent of the people including Tangahoe and Pakakohi agreed to the settlement process; 94 percent ratified. It seems to me that we will not get any better than that. To suggest that because there is a small minority—and numerically on those figures it has to be a very small minority—that is not comfortable with the settlement we should therefore allow relitigation of issues by that minority or in fact as the Greens would have it by anybody in Ngati Ruanui at some future stage is simply ridiculous. We need to have a balance. I am also aware of the arguments as to whether it is iwi or hapu that should be negotiated with. The Crown has mandated and there are questions as to whether the Crown should unilaterally mandate and define the groups that will be the negotiating parties as iwi groups or as large natural groups but in practical terms that is probably the one direction in which we can go if we want to try to get the issue resolved. 
My major objection is that despite the need for robust settlements and for full and final settlements the Government is still moving far too slowly in terms of this resolution. It proudly says it will achieve two settlements a year on average. That is simply not good enough. We need to be moving much faster than that. We as a nation need to get to a position where those things are finished and behind us. On the basis of a prediction of about 50 claims to go if we speed up the process—and that is simply a question of resources available to the Waitangi Tribunal and the Office of Treaty Settlements—we could by my calculations get the whole matter finished by 2015. Then we could have a finite date by which we could say we have finally got these issues behind us that Maori have the assets and the potential to be financially self-sufficient in order to move on and have accepted apologies freely given that there has been cultural redress—which I am pleased to see particularly in the form of the protocols in this bill—that there has been material restitution and that all parties are as far as can be conceivably expected happy with the result. We could say that that was behind us and we had coloured in the whole country in terms of the processes of the Office of Treaty Settlements. We could then look forward to a relationship into the future and focus on where we go to from here. 
I am concerned about the issue of where we go to from here because I simply do not see any sense of vision by this Government in terms of where the relationships between Maori and non-Maori will be in 10 15 or 20 years’ time. What does the Government see those as being? We continually get an almost schizophrenic approach to Maori issues which comes from a lack of a sense of moving in any consistent sort of direction. We get an approach that on some issues means we try to get resolution and reconciliation and we try to set up a framework that moves us forward together and the next thing is that the Government turns round and does things are simply divisive. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 15 be agreed to: 
to omit this clause.