Sharples Pita: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Sharples Pita: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2797] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe. Kai te Whare tena koutou. Te Arawa Waka Te Arawa tangata tena koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai e kawe nei te kaupapa nei ki roto i tenei Whare. Whakapiri mai. I o koutou mate kia tu honohono a tatou mate i tenei rangi a haere nga mate. A ko te mea nui kua tae pai mai koutou. Nau mai haere mai ra. 
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Greetings to you Madam Assistant Speaker and to those of you in the House. To the canoe and the people of Te Arawa greetings to you all. Welcome to you who bring this matter into this House. Draw closer. In respect of your deaths that bond with our ones today I say farewell the dead. And in respect of you the main thing is that you have arrived here safely so welcome welcome indeed. 
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The Maori Party stands today with a heavy heart. We honour the presence of Te Arawa here today and we think of those who are with them but are not physically present. We think of those who have passed on who were negotiating with the Crown over the future of the lakes some 80 years ago. We remember our tipuna who secured Lake Okataina and the surrounding Ngati Tarawhai lands as a scenic reserve in 1921. Let the record never erase from memory those who also passionately objected to the Te Arawa Lakes settlement negotiation of 1922. 
Te Arawa have been here before. They stood strong at Hirangi to denounce the fiscal envelope of those days. Our hearts go to all the kuia and koroua who in telling their stories unearthed a lifetime of sorrow the heart-wrenching stories that were gifted to the record of time. They have worked painstakingly for their people agonising over hours of hearings and volumes of words for the benefit of the tribe. 
We know with absolute certainty that those who have travelled here today want to settle as a mark of respect for so many of their people who have passed on without seeing this matter dealt with. Their member of Parliament Te Ururoa Flavell is today representing this Parliament at a gathering in Kenya. His heart aching for his people—for their stories and their mamae. His presence is also very much here today and he will look forward to contributing to this debate at subsequent readings. 
He shared with us the decades of grief for the degradation and destruction of Te Arawa’s taonga. Minister Burton today acknowledged the savage depletion of the fish life upon which Te Arawa relied. He talked of the senseless acts of prosecution of Te Arawa for fishing in their own moana. He talked of the holding back of survey maps and plans that would have enabled Te Arawa to prepare for their claim. He talked of the devastation of their wetlands reducing everything to one tap in the village. But will this putea pay for those things? That is why we are here today. 
We know of Te Arawa’s love and longing for the lands for the lakes and for the lives of their tipuna; and of the offence against Te Arawa’s tino rangatiratanga over the lakes and the usage of the resources of the lakes. In 1996 tangata whenua rejected unanimously the Crown’s offer of a $1 billion fiscal envelope to settle all claims as a full and final settlement of historic grievances. All the marae of the motu did that. But as successive Governments came and went the policy remained in place. 
The settlement process started with a bang but not much buck to show for it—$170 million respectively for Tainui for Ngai Tahu and for the Sealord’s fisheries. That $170 million became the standard for everybody else. It was a random figure with no rationale other than affordability. The House needs to recall that not one person has ever even suggested these settlements are anywhere near what a true and accurate response should have been. Indeed Professor Margaret Mutu has suggested that the Tainui people had to accept .01 percent of the real value of their claim—$170 million—while the claim was estimated at $1192 billion. For Ngai Tahu the figure was 0.4 percent of the real value. 
More recently redress amounts have been established pitting iwi against iwi hapu against hapu. Nowhere is this more apparent than amongst Te Arawa—and it is sad—where serious divisions have occurred between and amongst whanau hapu and iwi throughout the confederation. The process is a recipe for division—divide and rule and conquer. We have heard how some tribes are not mentioned in some of the three settlements yet mentioned in others. 
We are also aware of the urgent inquiry currently before Judge Wickliffe on behalf of Ngati Whaoa specifically for three of the 13 lakes enshrined in this legislation and for the 14th lake which has been omitted from this bill. How can Government go to settlement when there are still outstanding issues with regard to lakes in front of the tribunal? 
 Ngati Whaoa have told us that they were never represented by the Te Arawa Maori Trust Board in the legislation of 1922 or 1955. By this process the people of Te Arawa are being forced to face three different settlements with three different governance and management bodies with three different sets of costs. The fisheries settlement the kaihautu agreement in principle and the lakes settlement deed are the objects of today’s hui. With each new negotiation the amount reduces leaving a mere $2.7 million in cash for financial redress and $7.3 million for annuity redress. Ko te patai is that all a glittering jewel in this nation’s wealth is worth? The bill itself acknowledges this: “It is not possible to compensate Te Arawa fully for that loss”. It is in the bill. 
Te Arawa Lakes Trust is a group formed from Environment Bay of Plenty and the Rotorua District Council with just two places reserved for mana whenua Te Arawa? Where is the rangatiratanga in that? Mana or control over the lakes is thereby again subject to the whims of Government constructs.  
The matter of water has not even been mentioned or addressed. Nor is there sufficient recognition of the pollution and degradation of Te Arawa’s taonga. We understand that the estimated amount required to remedy the contamination inflicted on their moana by successive local authorities and Government regimes totals over $200 million. Where are the resources to clean up the lakes? Will the next Budget make the appropriation to restore the lakes to their positive condition? I think not. The last Budget never even had the word “Maori” in it.  
It is for these reasons and more that the Maori Party will not vote on this Government bill. We will not vote against Te Arawa; we will not vote. There is not enough compensation. The process has divided Te Arawa and it is all one-sided. We say to the people of Te Arawa that we respect their right to make decisions and respect the rangatiratanga of those who are gathered here today. We will not vote against them. But it is our sober task that we must never resile from a responsibility to bring to account the wrongful confiscation and theft of tangata whenua territories—the crimes against our people. We will not forget. We of the Maori Party appeal to members of this House—all of whom would want justice for themselves and theirs—to consider whether this settlement is a just settlement and whether their ancestors and descendants would see justice being played out today.  
With our first opportunity to speak on Treaty settlements in this House we in the Maori Party do not see this or any previous settlements as indications of the application of justice. Because of the seriousness and the breadth of our people’s concerns made clear to us through our electorates the Maori Party is considering a call for all Treaty settlements to be suspended until there has been a full review of the Treaty settlement process. Because of that we are writing to all hapu iwi and claimant groups to ask them to consider some of the concerns that have been sent to us by the people. 
Na reira Te Arawa tena koutou. Tena koutou i puku kaha te kokiri i to koutou tono ki te whanako ara ki te Karauna kia hoki tika mai te mana me ona rawa ki a koutou. Tena koutou i hoe mai i o koutou waka i runga i nga roimata o te aroha mai i nga wa kainga tae noa ki te ana o te raiona. Ko tenei tu he tu kia werohia te Kawanatanga kia whakatika ai i nga kereme katoa. Ko ta matou e pouri nei ko ta matou mohio i te mutunga ake kei a ratou te korero whakamutunga. Kei te ki ko enei ko ena ranei nga taonga ka whakahokia a me nga rawa hoki ka whangaihia atu ki a koutou. Na reira Te Arawa kei te tangi. Kei te tangi matou. Matou nga tonotono a te iwi. Matou nga mema a te Pati Maori. Matou nga uri o Te Arawa o Kahungunu o Ngapuhi o te Whanga-nui-a-Tara nei ra. No reira huri noa tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. Kei raro Madam Assistant Speaker. 
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And so greetings to you Te Arawa. Greetings to you who worked strenuously to initiate your claim to the thief the Crown for the return of the authority and its properties to you directly. Greetings to you who paddled your canoes from your homes to the lions’ den here with tears of love. This stance of mine is to challenge the Government to rectify all claims. What saddens us greatly is that at the end of it all they have the final say. We over here are saying: are those taonga really the ones that will be returned to you and the benefits that will be fed to you? And so Te Arawa we are grieving. We the representatives of the people of the Maori Party and as descendants of Te Arawa Kahungunu Ngapuhi and of Wellington here are mourning. And so greetings to you all throughout the House. I end here Madam Assistant Speaker. 
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