Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker and ngā mihi ki a Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua me Rangitāne o Wairarapa me Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua. It's a pleasure to take a call as the deputy chair of the Māori Affairs Committee which heard these submissions and I want to also acknowledge the hard work of the chair of the committee Tāmati Coffey for leading what has been I think a very constructive and very discursive and in-depth process that the committee has gone through to examine the submissions on this bill and to really understand the history of the settlement to date.I also want to acknowledge the negotiators of Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu and particularly for their work for the people they represent now but also for future generations and for always having that in mind. The negotiators who come to the table on this represent so much—not only the hopes of the people now but also the weight of the expectations and the hopes of our tūpuna and they have done that with dignity.This bill as the Minister said brings to life agreements made in those rooms in those discussions between rangatira of the iwi and the Crown. It's a real privilege to sit on the Māori Affairs Committee which comes to see the very end point of the Treaty negotiations process and all of the work that has gone into that not just from the Crown side but from the iwi themselves.I will take us through some of the detail of what this bill does as someone who's had the privilege of examining it at the committee stage but first let me tell you about my favourite memory of sitting for this issue. It was on 12 May that the select committee went to Pāpāwai Marae in Greytown and we were invited there to hear from the 21 submitters who wanted to be heard in person at Pāpāwai Marae. It's a really important site for many iwi not just the two iwi that we are talking about here today. It was the site of what was once a Māori Parliament. It has been a site of debate and discussion in Te Ao Māori for many generations and it was really special to be there. I remember standing at the mahau as the very light rain began—the marangai—and a rainbow emerged from outside. You know in Te Ao Māori that is a sign that these discussions are important and I felt the weight of that. When we heard the mamae within the wharenui expressed in such personal terms—you know these were people telling us their stories not only of their own deep feelings about the names of their tūpuna but also about the stories that they had learnt as children from their grandparents in that very whare that we were sitting in. It was very special but also it's not like another select committee where you hear from submitters and experts and then you're able to weigh a sort of linear narrative about what is factually correct. This was asking us to make very careful judgment calls about how we expressed the select committee's position on behalf of Parliament and reported back and we took that job really seriously.But it wasn't actually in that wharenui that was the most important discussion. For me it was in the wharekai over morning tea with—the hau kāinga had put on an incredible spread and I got around the room and I got to sit with nannies and uncles and aunties and their cousins and some nieces and nephews—some only 20 years old—who were presenting to the committee later in the day. And I just got to see—whether they were from what one might see as the Kahungunu side of the dispute or what one might see as Te Rangiwhakaewa side of the dispute or whatever it was—I saw them talking to each other about their hopes and what they wanted to see from this settlement. In this space that was the wharekai it really hit me how these relationships are so deeply felt and so important and the Crown's got really nothing to do with that. It's really incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to appreciate just how irrelevant we are to the strength of those relationships which exist between the hapū between the iwi and between the inter-iwi relationships that go along with these settlements and that it is for the leaders of these iwi to set a strong signal of leadership when these settlements go through and then for the people to keep them accountable and to make sure that they are working for our people.So I'm pleased that at this third reading we will be passing this bill and then we can step back from that role. We still owe a duty as the Crown to make sure that the commitments are honoured and we will honour those into the future but for these relationships that hinge on whakapapa and the right way to acknowledge whakapapa those are not for us. I thank the member Judith Collins for what she said: the Crown cannot adjudicate on those matters. I heard also Dr Shane Reti when he said we want to leave this in a position of peace and progress. That is what we hope in this House. It is not a political position; that is the right thing to do and I support those comments.Now let me just talk a little bit about this joint redress bill. It recognises that while Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne are very separate and claim lineage from different ancestors they are closely interconnected in the way that I spoke about and saw with my own eyes at Pāpāwai. They share whakapapa throughout the Wairarapa and Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua regions and that is why having a separate piece of legislation like this which deals with their joint redress lets them—the iwi—have their own separate settlements that are for them to do with what they please.It doesn't mean that all of their joint redress is included in this bill because of course both of their individual settlements will be for the benefit of many individuals who claim lineage to both Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu. It's important for us to bear in mind that while we heard from individuals who claim that settlement of a certain piece of land or settlement of certain assets should be to one individually many of the individuals that we would have heard from can claim the benefit of both individual settlements and the joint redress.The thing to know about the joint redress is that as my colleague Rino Tirikatene has said the joint redress deals with much of the cultural property. Cultural property in Treaty settlements is things like statutory recognition of the importance of a particular landmark or site—in this case for instance the Wairarapa Moana—that has been taken for the Crown wrongly and it will be recognised going further as significant to that iwi. It affects things like taonga tūturu protocols which I'm really keen on. Those are things like when a taonga is discovered on private or public land—those are protocols that the Ministry of Culture and Heritage has to decide who might put up their hand and say We would like to care for that; we are the kaitiaki of that thing which our tūpuna used and is a taonga to us." They're important for things like signs and things like who gets input into the naming of certain sites. They seem small but they're actually really important about the way that we conceptualise the land around us. So that's why these are particularly important.I think it's useful for the House to look at how Subpart 1 in Part 2 of this bill provides for the overlay classification of Castlepoint. That was a piece of land that the committee heard a lot about. It's significant for both Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne through their traditional cultural and spiritual and historical stories for that piece of land. We heard from submitters—and many submitters in fact—that it was significant for both iwi and so this is why it's in the joint redress bill.It also deals in Subpart 2 of Part 2 with the management of customary fishing in Wairarapa Moana and later in the bill it deals with the land associated with Wairarapa Moana. This is something the committee considered really carefully about how those arrangements will work in future particularly around the penalties for people who break the rules around them because this is something that the Crown and the iwi will be responsible for going forward around the management of that land. We delved closely into that because it is a common provision which officials gave us some really useful advice about and I think we've got it right for the future.There were also a lot of submissions around the Mākirikiri property and I want to put on record for the House that we carefully considered the evidence provided to us regarding the vesting of Mākirikiri reserve in the tupuna Te Rangi Rangiwhakaewa. We sought advice from officials on the circumstances leading to the ratification of that Mākirikiri property. Some of the discussion has come back to that issue of whakapapa and again I'm really supportive of where we have landed with this and believe in the leadership of both iwi to continue to work with that property and the rest of this joint settlement. That's why I commend this bill to the House."