Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): Kia tia e ngā rangatira e ngā karangatanga maha e ngā whānau katoa mai i a Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki kua tatū mai ki Te Ūpoko o te Ika tēnā koutou katoa. Tēnā anō tātou i te āhuatanga o ō tātou mate ō koutou rawa mātua kua poupou rā. Pūhakehake ana te aroha i roto i te ngākau i te korenga o rātou i toe mai kia kai ā-kanohi mai ai rātou i ngā mahi e oti ana i a mātou i a koutou tutuki ana te kaupapa i tēnei rā. Nā reira ko rātou ki a rātou ko tātou ki a tātou tēnā anō koutou katoa. Nōku i te tamariki i mōhio ahau ki tō koutou tupuna a Te Ngehungiu. Ahau he mea whakatupu e taku Karani Māmā tēnā kuia i whānau mai i te tau 1892 he hoa haere nā Whina he hoa tūtakitaki nā Te Puea koia mātou i mōhio ai ki tēnā kuia. Koni atu i tērā he mea kura ahau i te Kura i Tīpene kitekite mātou i tēnā kuia ā kua Pākehā pēnei i ahau kiritea te titiro tūturu Māori tana ngākau. Nā reira tēnā anō koutou i te i a rau mahara mō tēnā reanga kua riro. Nā reira e te Whare tēnā anō tātou katoa.[Greetings to the leaders to the many strands of connection to all the families from Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki who have descended on Wellington greetings to you all. Greetings to one and all with the acknowledgment of our deceased your elders who are now aloft. The love in my heart overflows in the absence of them remaining with us to see with their own eyes what we have completed what you have completed achieving this matter today. Therefore the deceased remain with the deceased and the living return to the realms of the living greetings again to you all.When I was a child I knew your ancestor Te Ngehungiu. I was brought up by my grandmother that elderly lady who was born in the year 1892 a compatriot of Whina a contact of Te Puea; that is how we knew that elderly lady. Furthermore I was educated at St Stephen's College where we regularly saw that elderly lady and she looked as Pākehā as do I of pale skin to the eye but she had a genuinely Māori heart. Therefore greetings again to you all in remembrance of that generation who have passed. And so to the House greetings.]I have acknowledged the manuhiri in the House today belonging to the Ngāi Tai tribe ki Tāmaki but of course they are part of a broader Ngāi Tai community with a fantastic story that takes us right back to the arrival of the waka of our tūpuna as the Ngāpuhi say from Warowaroātea Tahiti Nui Tahiti Roa Tahiti …. They're descendants of the Tainui waka descendants also of Mātaatua waka also occupying a place called Mātaitai which is of particular significance to me given it's the Ngāpuhi word for shellfish. I can only presume that as a consequence of the cultural redress elements of this settlement that we assemble here today to acknowledge and affirm with the sovereign powers of Parliament these settlements and this particular initiative ensures that the rangatiratanga and also the pride in identity is fulfilled today.New Zealand's face is changing. For those of us who grew up in rural New Zealand in a Māori environment there were only two elements to the countenance of New Zealand: the Queen and the Māori warrior holding the taiaha—whether it was on the old shilling or as it still subsists today in reflecting the Crown relationship. But in Auckland those days are gone. In Auckland it truly is a mega-city. It truly is a multi-ethnic multiracial multicultural city and it's absolutely essential that settlements such as this enable the mokopuna the uri the descendants of the original tribes to continue to project their identity protect their rights and most importantly occupy a place of pride when numerically their percentage is getting small but historically their rights are traceable back to the foundation document of our country the Treaty of Waitangi.Our party supports the passage of this bill. We note that there was an ongoing wrangle in so far as the shared competing claims of Ngāti Wai—the tribe of my boss Winston Peters—and Ngāi Tai but I support the sentiments of the former Minister Chris Finlayson: the show has to go on. And the important reality that we can never escape from as the former chairman of the Māori Fisheries Commission is that there are always overlapping interests; there are always areas where there cannot be a firm line of demarcation. Indeed I see in the bill that in the northern part of the rohe the Ngāi Tai connection goes right up to Mangawhai and Te Ārai—I only hope you don't have a golf course development that you want me to look after as well.The point about this particular settlement is that I find that—and I know my leader agrees—it takes a great deal of time to invest to support and to encourage leadership. Whilst what we put on the face of the law may have certain legal significance and lead to enforceable rights after a settlement the ability to project identity to project pride to keep culture alive and to develop bilingualism comes down to leadership. We believe rightly or wrongly that by endowing iwi settlement groups—never with enough; that's just the nature of this game—with a suitable level of recognition and some pūtea it can act as something akin to a seedbed because without leadership no tribe in Aotearoa is going to fulfil its potential as our population changes as we speak in this very House. The percentage of Pākehā will slowly drop the percentage of Māori will slowly rise and then—unless the younger generation emulates the efforts of matua Shane Jones and his several beautiful kids—that too will plateau. Then other immigrant groups will continue to arrive in Aotearoa but these settlements cement a part of our history and it must be protected at all times into our future because this is what makes New Zealand distinctive.New Zealand is located in the South Pacific. Whilst our original immigrants and pioneers were largely of Anglo-Saxon stock—some from Croatia and married the Māori princesses as is my background—we must cling tenaciously and promote through these settlements not only the rights but the obligations to ensure that we leave a better legacy for the generation that comes after us as Māori. So we move on from the period where people were not only aggrieved—they cannot and must not pass on that grievance from generation to generation or we will be overwhelmed and eclipsed by new migrants who do not come to talk about historical grievances but come to make a future for themselves.So these settlements remind us that the future belongs as much to Māori as everyone else but us Māori we've got to do it for ourselves as well. Hopefully this base and this enhanced recognition of Ngāi Tai eclipsed for a long period of time—as I said in Te Reo when I was a lad a St Stephen's College my schoolteacher was from Ngāi Tai a Mr Lewis Maxwell. He taught us how to box. His nephew was a good friend of mine—sadly a better boxer than my good self.But their kuia—a very Pākehā-looking kuia—was called Ngengeu. She often acted as the representative for Te Pūea and was a fellow traveller with my grandmother and Whina Cooper through the Māori Women's Welfare League. I would say she was probably the most visible or notable member that ordinary Māori ever knew from this particular tribe. So her legacy hopefully will live on. This settlement will enable us to cement the presence of Ngāi Tai into the legal landscape but it's the spirit the heart and the perseverance of Ngāi Tai that will keep them alive. Kia ora tātou katoa.