Burton Mark: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Burton Mark: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5357] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 I want to pick up on one or two of the points made by the previous two speakers. Mr Flavell outlined the amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 57 in his name and—as I did in respect of Supplementary Order Paper 56 in my name—covered the effects of it across the bill. I will deal with the impacts of the Supplementary Order Paper at the various stages of the bill and with the points raised by the member who has just resumed her seat. 
The first point I want to remake to the Committee is that the deed of settlement and this bill have been negotiated and agreed to in good faith with Te Arawa’s mandated negotiators. The member who has just resumed her seat quite rightly laments those who have died along the way in the 10 years that this process has taken. People have spent their life’s work—and life’s blood in some cases—to get to this point. For others who do not have that depth of background and commitment to then flippantly presume to usurp the authority the mana and the mandate of those people—a mandate I repeat that is upheld by the tribunal—and at a whim to replace their work with a Supplementary Order Paper in this Committee is I think an insult. I think it undermines the integrity of the process—the integrity that the negotiators upheld it as having. I think it is a serious matter. 
I know that the intent of the member who has just resumed her seat is absolutely serious and that she is highly motivated to get a fair result. I do not question that but I ask her to consider whether one should usurp those who have worked for 10 years on the process and who have earned the right to negotiate and have their mandate renewed and upheld over and over again in many cases at huge personal cost to themselves. I think few people will ever understand the cost not only in dollars or in time but also in the effect on those people and their families and whanau. In my view we owe it to them to treat the integrity of this process very carefully. I believe that the process has been one where everyone has come to the table to try to get a fair and proper result. 
The Supplementary Order Paper that Mr Flavell proposes would change fundamentally the agreed settlement. For that reason I cannot and the Government cannot support it. As I have tried to illustrate it is entirely inappropriate to undermine in this way those who have the mandate and I think that on that basis alone the amendments could be rejected. In terms of Part 1 Supplementary Order Paper 57 dated 6 September seeks to amend clause 5. That clause in fact simply outlines the content of the bill and has no actual bearing on the interpretation or application of the legislation. It therefore has no material value. The Supplementary Order Paper also proposes amendments to definitions in clause 11 that are consequential to a proposed amendment to Part 2. I will deal with that when we get to that point in the bill. 
In terms of clause 13 I think the Supplementary Order Paper proposes that any claims in relation to three of the lakes should not be settled. I repeat that the trust board has upheld and renewed the mandate throughout this process in relation to all 14 of the lakes on behalf of all Te Arawa. The Supplementary Order Paper proposes to remove from the settlement with no apparent authority from anyone the claims in relation to three lakes named on the Supplementary Order Paper. The settlement was ratified by the Te Arawa claimant community and I think it would simply be wrong of this Committee to vote for a non-mandated challenge rather than a properly mandated process and a properly mandated ratification process. 
Finally the Supplementary Order Paper also proposes that clause 15 which provides for the full and final settlement of Te Arawa’s claims to the lakes be removed. I simply ask how we can possibly ever hope to ever have a full and final settlement if this Committee at its whim sets about removing from this legislation a properly negotiated full and final settlement negotiated by people who have the mandate and the mana to do so. I urge members to give serious consideration to the issue of who holds the mandate to negotiate. If those people reached a proper and fairly negotiated end result then who has any demonstrated mandate to challenge it?