Tirikatene Rino: Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5491. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena ra koutou e te Whare. Ki a koutou Ngati Whatua o Orakei nau mai hara mai. Hara mai ki raro i te tuanui o tenei o to tatou Whare Paremata. Tena koutou tena koutou huri noa tena tatou katoa. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Speaker. Greetings indeed to you the House. To you collectively Ngati Whatua o Orakei welcome welcome. Welcome under the roof of this our Parliament House. Salutations acknowledgments collectively to you throughout and to us all. 
] 
I am pleased to make a small contribution to the second reading of the Ngati Whatua Orakei Claims Settlement Bill. This has been a really momentous Treaty settlement day that we have had today so I would like to mihi to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and to all the other contributors who have been speaking to these bills today. 
As Ms Delahunty mentioned earlier on all of this Treaty settlement process goes back to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I like to go through history but we do know that the Ngati Whatua chiefs signed the Maori text of te Tiriti on 20 March 1840 after which a delegation of chiefs invited Captain Hobson to make his capital at Waitemata which he did in July of that year. In September 1840 the Crown had negotiated 3500 acres of land that is where Auckland Central stands today. The chiefs of Ngati Whatua o Orakei invited Hobson to the isthmus in the hope of benefiting from living in close proximity to Pakeha—so as to benefit through trade and commerce. Over the next 2 years the Crown purchased another 29000 acres for £650 so as to facilitate land for housing of the new town of Auckland. However it was not long before breaches of the Treaty started to appear and the anticipated working in partnership with Pakeha was never realised. Between 1884-85 the Crown gave up its right of pre-emption in order to allow direct dealing of land between the Maori and the settlers and provided regulations to protect the Maori in these transactions. So very soon Ngati Whatua had become virtually landless through lack of Government action and in some cases some very dubious actions on behalf of the Crown. As I said before the expected benefits that Ngati Whatua would attain through their relationship with the Crown and the new town of Auckland never eventuated. This is the same modus operandi as has been covered in some of the earlier bills that have gone through this House and it is regrettable. In 1846 more land was taken to form west Auckland and by 1855 just 15 years after the signing of te Tiriti Ngati Whatua had barely 700 acres left in their estate. But later even those reserve lands were lost. 
I am pleased that we are reporting back on this bill. This bill contains a comprehensive series of acknowledgments by the Crown where the Treaty was breached in the Crown’s dealings with Ngati Whatua o Orakei. The Crown will apologise for acts and omissions that left Ngati Whatua o Orakei landless. That landlessness led to the breakdown of the social cultural economic spiritual and physical structures within Ngati Whatua which left them in poverty. The apology also records that the Crown intends to improve and strengthen its historical close relationship based on Treaty principles with Ngati Whatua so as to lay a solid foundation for the future and I do commend that. 
On the select committee as we have heard we heard a number of submissions at Orakei Marae and they were all in relation to the Narrow Neck property. I will make a few remarks on that. The House will be aware that we heard all those many submissions but it was there when we were listening to those submissions that we saw what is really the ignorance and mean-spiritedness of some elements of Pakeha New Zealand in relation to the Narrow Neck property. Submissions were made as to why Ngati Whatua should not get Narrow Neck back and arguments were put forward by the Devonport residents that they had somehow become an iwi of their own and that somehow the principles of the Treaty should apply to them as well—[ 
Interruption 
] These were from the many submissions that we heard from Devonport. But all of that talk was really a cheek. It was a real cheek to hear. They threw the book at us in terms of every conceivable argument or scenario that they could paint. But it was absolutely regrettable. 
It is regrettable that we got an insight into the window of the attitude held by some Pakeha with regard to the Treaty and to the claims process in general. Some just do not want to see settlements proceed. The Devonport Maori population is significant. It is a significant Maori population when all of the navy ships are in port. When those ships are in port the numbers dramatically rise and we get a town full of Maoris. The navy and the Defence Force in general is a fine employer of Maori—around 22 percent of the navy. I am not too sure if Devonport has a kohanga and kura kaupapa in that leafy seaside suburb but when Ngati Whatua comes into town I hope that is the case. 
 The select committee was under the very capable excellent leadership of Tau Henare very Speaker-like in his control of our committee—very Speaker-like. We considered all these submissions but notwithstanding all of those submissions and all of the concerns that were raised I am very pleased to say that no recommendations were made to amend any of the provisions around the purchase of the land of Narrow Neck and I am very pleased that we held firm as a committee in the face of all of those many many totally off-mark submissions to ensure that this was preserved and can continue through this House. 
So I would just like to mihi to Ngati Whatua o Orakei again. Nga mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa. We are on the home stretch and I am looking forward to ushering this bill through its final stages. I mihi to you all and also to the members of this House. Happy “Treaty Settlement Day”. Kia ora ano tatou.