SpeechGLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora Madam Speaker. Te Kāhui Maru te iwi o Ngāti Maruwharanui tēnā koutou tēnā koutou hurinoa i te Whare tēnā koutou katoa.[To the cluster of Ngāti Maru iwi to the people of Ngāti Maruwharanui greetings greetings to you all and greetings to all sides of the House.]I rise this afternoon and feel the need to apologise. Yes it has been 200 years but even today as you've sat in this House as you arrived in this House and as you've sat here this afternoon there have been things and words and phrases that I know trigger and challenge and I apologise for that. Even though we are here in the third reading even though we've come to this place of settlement with you we still get our language wrong. In many times and in many places many of us have our thinking wrong I believe but I'll save that for another time. You're welcome here and I thank you for the friendships that I see both in the gallery and those who aren't here today. Those fierce friendships that have crafted and honed who I am and I hope will continue to craft the person I am not only in this place but as a member of our society and as a member of our Taranaki community. We're here today to reflect on the legacies the losses and the oppression that as I said is ever-present even today and I know it's been a long hīkoi: 200 years. I know and I talked about it in the first reading and it's been mentioned today that the first time that grievances were brought to this House was 1891. It went on and it went on and it went on and here we are today and I will go on with our challenges in trying to forge our partnership together but I hope it moves forward in a place of friendship of togetherness. This afternoon I want to acknowledge those that have gone before us. To your ancestors to those who began this journey many years ago who aren't with us but also those of Ngāti Maru who have forged a path for you to be here today and for us to be at our third reading. Now we reflect I guess that today is very much around the future but as I sat up in the Banquet Hall when we welcomed you I asked the person next to me Did you come down this morning from Taranaki?" and the answer was "No no no. Actually I live elsewhere." It's interesting that when land loss and oppression and loss of culture happens there's a dispersion that goes on and so I understand that for many of your people they are dispersed because of what went on as a result of decisions made by Governments past. But today is very much around our future. We always need to hold on to what has gone before us but it's looking to what is possible and I hope what is possible—and I commit myself to this today—is that shared future. That partnership gets thrown around but that partnership like I said is actually friendship. It is actually walking together in friendship which is equal. Today is around the restoration of mana. There is a financial space to this which I know is only a small part of what was lost but hopefully this financial future sets you up for what can be a future for your people a future for our region. As you are the eighth iwi to settle in Taranaki I look forward as I get around our region—watch out—the iwi the Māori economy is the one to watch as we move forward as we are all settled. So watch this space. I will walk alongside you with that as well and of course I know you're part of the future of Maunga Taranaki working with the other seven iwi around your tūpuna and what that future looks like. Very much again—as Pākehā I'm stating the obvious but you knew it already—it's just bringing us to the party yet again bringing us to that place of understanding. So as a post-settlement region I look forward to our future as friends. As I look in the gallery and I saw it today I love the fact that there are a number of rangatahi here. There are a number of rangatahi and there are a number of tamariki who are here to witness this and hopefully there'll be children and young people of the future. The fight will continue I know in many ways but that fight hopefully will be a different one—one with some resource one with a clearer path that you can forge your future—and people like me can be friends and walk alongside but also get out of the way when we need to because that's probably quite helpful as well right? What I'm glad about in listening today and hearing the stories of land that was lost of resources that were taken and of your dispersion is that as we begin to teach New Zealand history in our schools our tamariki and our rangatahi will understand your stories understand your loss and understand the mamae and why that exists in order to learn to grow. Again I don't feel like I'm speaking to Ngāti Maru here; I'm speaking to myself and to my people. I'm really encouraged to see what you're already doing as iwi whether it be in the conservation space working with young people—I know the conversation with Feats and what that future looks like—and it's exciting to see again you're grasping the future and taking it and running with it. I look forward to heading back out to Tarata and accompanying the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Hon Andrew Little for that official apology. Another excuse to hang out there but also this time when we can come together and your people can be in that space we can listen to words that need to be said so that we can ensure that we move forward together into the future. For me as tangata Tiriti and as the MP for New Plymouth which isn't technically your lands but we all share—we all mix and mingle and move around right? Yeah. My commitment today is to be a friend in that partnership sense. It's to be a friend in terms of saying when we aren't getting it right that my door is open—I would share my cellphone number here but maybe it's too public a space—and to come and see me and challenge me and to encourage me but also to push for what is needed in terms of not just signing a settlement not just making this third reading today and saying "We're moving on. Sweet—we're done." but actually this is partnership this is friendship. So I commit myself as I do to the other iwi of Taranaki to saying that my door is open because I want to be a true friend—not how it's been but how it can be—and to learn from that. So today is another step in 200-plus years of struggle but hopefully it's a step in optimism and possibility in what can be and so that Ngāti Maru—your people our iwi in Taranaki—will lead our journey forward to what is an exciting future. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Penny Simmonds for a five-minute call."