Finlayson Christopher: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFinlayson Christopher: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19103. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations):I am sure the Committee will indulge me when I as the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations simply say how grateful I am to the excellent chair of the Māori Affairs Committee the Hon Tau Henare. He and that team in Māori affairs have done a wonderful job and I want to say to him that his best years are ahead of him and I thank him for his service to this country.I also want to acknowledge very briefly Shane Jones who has left us because this is a bipartisan effort and the contribution of Shane to Treaty settlements and the advice he has given me over the years I greatly appreciate certainly in relation to the Te Hiku Claims Settlement Bill which is being introduced to the House. I said to Kelvin Davis for whom I have enormous respect as a person and a parliamentarian that it is a pleasure to work with him and it will be a pleasure to work with him on these matters—unlike I regret to say Mr Harawira who talks big but never delivers. In fact when it came to Ngāpuhi he said to me not so long ago: “I say one thing to you and another thing to others in my family.” Well that is the way he wants to operate but at the end of the day he does not achieve very much and that is why I think that Kelvin leaves him for dead.But this is about bipartisan effort and I want to say that so much good work has been done by the chief Crown negotiators. Mr Henare was gracious enough to mention Rick Barker former Minister in here and Paul Swain who chairs the negotiating panel and does a very good job for me. I also want to mention people like John Isles and also John Wood because together they have been a formidable team and have enabled us to address a large number of matters. I must of course refer to the Office of Treaty Settlements and the very good work that it does. The proof of the pudding as they say is in the eating. Just a couple of weeks ago for example we signed agreements of principle with the Wairoa and Hastings taiwhenua of Ngāti Kahungunu. I am very busy at the present time working with Ron Mark and the team in Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa.We are making very good progress down the East Coast and what I certainly hope is that before this House rises on 31 July we will be in a position where we can sign a deed of settlement with the Whanganui River iwi. That will be a great day for this country because that is in fact 150 years of litigation that went to all the courts of our land and has been a very long time coming. As I understand it ratification is going very well and it will be a tremendous tribute to Mrs Turia to be able to sign that deed of settlement. I see Mr Borrows listening intently—and so he should because it is in his takiwā. It will be great to sign it the day after Mrs Turia says goodbye to this House after what has been an extraordinary period of service.So there is a lot of work to do. Let me emphasise that this Government never said that there was a deadline of 2014. You cannot have a deadline to resolve these hugely important matters. It was an aspirational goal. We have done our very best and the progress that has been made has been phenomenal. Take for example—Sue Moroney: An aspirational goal.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I hear the sneering of Sue Moroney on the other side. She could not buy into anything bipartisan if she tried. But Hauraki is an example of where there are 12 individual iwi and two collective settlements and with a bit of luck and a good headwind we should be in a position I hope to initial at least 10 of those individual deeds and the two collectives before we get into the campaign season.In the spirit of bipartisanship—it is often regarded as a great weakness of mine but I try to reach out in a bipartisan way—I have to say that I do appreciate the support of the Labour Party and other parties in this House so that we could get the work done. I have nothing but contempt for New Zealand First which took a shockingly partisan approach to the Te Urewera—Tūhoe Bill when it was going through the Committee the other day. Its members were divisive. They had two fundamental problems: they were divisive and unpleasant and they were plain wrong. They did not listen to the facts as they were spelt out to them and instead—Tracey Martin: We stood up for the little guy when you railroaded that through.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON—like that demented creature over there—just yelled and screamed.Vote agreed to.