Roche Denise: Te Kawerau ā Maki Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Te Kawerau ā Maki Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6393. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker tēnā koe e te Whare rau rangatira mā tēnei te mihi ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te rā tēnā koutou ngā rangatira me ngā tāngata o Te Kawerau ā Maki tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.[Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker and the House. To you esteemed ones I applaud you collectively in regard to the matter of the day; so greetings to you the leaders and people of Te Kawerau ā Maki. Welcome acknowledgments and congratulations to you all.]It is my privilege to take this call for the Greens to speak on this final part of the Treaty settlement bill for Te Kawerau ā Maki. It is a historic day and I want to acknowledge all the people of Te Kawerau ā Maki who are here with us in the House and those who are at home watching the proceedings. I recognise that these proceedings today represent decades and decades of struggle over generations to get to a point where Te Kawerau ā Maki can finally start on a future with a better economic footing and an apology from the Crown which will help them to heal from the past injustices.I want to acknowledge those who signed the deed of settlement on behalf of Te Kawerau Iwi Settlement Trust—Te Wārena Taua or George Taua; Hāmuera Taua; Miriama Tamaariki; Ngārama Walker—while also acknowledging that there are many who have worked on this settlement for years and years. I would like to acknowledge the negotiation teams from both sides. I will also take this opportunity to acknowledge those who have passed away during the time that this settlement was negotiated and settled. Tēnā koutou i ā koutou tini mate nō reira haere e ngā mate haere ki te kāinga tūturu o Te Matua i Te Rangi haere haere haere![I acknowledge you and the myriads of your dead. So farewell the dead; go forth to the true home of the Heavenly Father; travel on depart and goodbye!]And so to return to the issue before us: te hunga mate ki te hunga mate te hunga ora ki te hunga ora [the dead to the dead and the living to the living]. This settlement and legislation represent an act of enormous generosity by the people of Te Kawerau ā Maki. It is some compensation for the huge losses of land and the economic bases of the people going right back to just after Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed. Those losses were sustained through the dodgy actions of the Crown which created laws to disenfranchise people from their land and from their economic base.We have to acknowledge that the financial redress comes nowhere near compensating for the huge land losses. This includes vast Crown purchases in the 19th century in places like Mahurangi and Ōmaha; Mangatawhiri and Tāwharanui in west Auckland including the beautiful wild beaches; south Kaipara; and the upper Waitematā Harbour. These are just some of the areas where Te Kawerau ā Maki were alienated from their land.The cultural financial and commercial redress amounts to $6.5 million and a contribution to the establishment of a marae for Te Kawerau ā Maki. That is the compensation for the hundreds of thousands of acres lost and we have to acknowledge that by any measure it comes nowhere near a full recompense for what was lost. But we also acknowledge that this was the best deal that Te Kawerau ā Maki could negotiate at this time. I think it behoves us to remember that the priority of this Government is sometimes somewhat skewed as $6.5 million is a quarter of what this Government will spend on a referendum for a new flag.I come back to the settlement. Further cultural redress includes the vesting of nine significant cultural sites to iwi the right of first refusal over some land and it re-establishes in this legislation and reinforces the kaitiaki status of the iwi in their rohe. I just want to acknowledge like others have before me the relationship that Te Kawerau ā Maki have had with the Waitakere City Council and the councils before that. So I would like to acknowledge up in the gallery Sir Bob Harvey the former Mayor of Waitakere city; and also the former Mayor of Rodney District Penny Webster who is now an Auckland councillor; and of course Councillor Alf Filipaina. It is great to see them here actually as a representation of the genuineness of that relationship on both sides.I said earlier that it is a privilege to be involved in the select committee and to speak on this settlement bill in the House and I maintain that. I am an Aucklander. I have the rare privilege of reading the history that was outlined in the settlement deed of Te Kawerau ā Maki. I was born into Te Kawerau ā Maki rohe—I was born in Helensville—but until this deed of settlement came to the House with the legislation this was the first time I was aware of the full history of the people of the area and I regret that that is the case for many in New Zealand who are unaware of the losses suffered by iwi in the area where they now live all over Aotearoa.Worse there are some who resent the settlement process and unfortunately there are still those racists—there are racists—who would refer to that $6.5 million in financial redress as a gravy train. Any reasonable person would not agree with that. Clearly there is more effort needed to educate the citizens of Aotearoa tangata Tiriti who need to understand what went before and how they fit into the full picture and the full history of Aotearoa New Zealand.It is my duty to place on the record that the Greens do not believe that this settlement is a full and final settlement. We have looked at the compensation; it is clearly not a full compensation. Future generations of Te Kawerau ā Maki would be bound by this agreement and we have no way of knowing how these historical injustices will affect those future generations so we reject that claim.Having said that it is important to acknowledge that this is a day of celebration. But we are also concerned that sometimes the Treaty settlement process pits Māori against Māori iwi against iwi and that the Crown has a huge role in determining with whom it will negotiate—who is in; who is out—and that is of concern because there we may see further breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I just needed to get that on the record.I will finish up by going back to the settlement deed and the legislation and looking at the apology. The final paragraph in the apology says: “The Crown unreservedly apologises for not having honoured its obligations to Te Kawerau ā Maki under the Treaty of Waitangi. Through this apology and this settlement the Crown seeks to atone for its wrongs and lift the burden of grievance so that the process of healing can begin. By the same means the Crown hopes to form a new relationship with the people of Te Kawerau ā Maki based on mutual trust co-operation and respect for the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles.” We wish that too. We celebrate with Te Kawerau ā Maki for reaching this part of the process of the settlement. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.