Franks Stephen: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20195] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I am glad that the Minister in the chair Mita Ririnui took a call to respond. The argument he made though that the Crown is not apologising for eroding traditional structures is not consistent with the wording of clause 8(3)(f) which states: “these actions”—referring to the individualisation of title and loss of the use of swamps and land etc.—“eroded the traditional social structures … The Crown failed to adequately protect Ngati Tuwharetoa … from the impact of these actions and this was a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi … and its principles.” My questions are: how where—and what principles? 
There is no definition of those principles. They were weasel words used by this House in a moment of infamy and subsequently the courts have had to try to give them some meaning. The courts have struggled. We have no authoritative statement of what those so-called principles are yet in this provision we see the Crown acknowledging having eroded social structures etc. and then in clause 10 apologising for the matters it has acknowledged. 
Clause 10(4) states: “The Crown profoundly regrets its failure to acknowledge the mana and rangatiratanga of Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty).” Clause 10(5) states that the Crown “seeks to atone for these wrongs and to begin the process of healing …”. Clause 10(2) states: “The Crown profoundly regrets and unreservedly apologises for the breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi … and its principles.” 
None of us know what those principles are. The Prime Minister when directly requested has never managed to tell us what those principles are. No speaker from the Government has ever told us exactly what principle says that the traditional social structures of Maori should not be eroded. For all peoples traditional social structures evolve. Erosion is a way of talking about it pejoratively but evolution is the action of every human social structure. 
Indeed I suggest that if the Government offered Ngati Tuwharetoa who are living in the Bay of Plenty now an opportunity to exchange their position for what they had then very few would take it up. Who would want to be subject to a traditional social structure in which slavery had only just gone? Who would want to be subject to a traditional social structure whereby the ability to utilise land did not have the reforms or efforts that Sir Apirana Ngata brought to it in order to make collective landholding economically worthwhile? It took a great deal of erosion—or evolution—in traditional social structures to get to the position where people could be confident even that they would get to harvest a crop they had sowed. 
I think it is a disgrace that this Committee is sitting here tugging its forelock and asking where it can sign and when it will vote when those apologies are historical nonsense and are for conduct that has nothing whatsoever to do with the treaty. If that apology had been for the fraudulent procuring of land for the wrongful punishment of people for rebellions they were not involved in or simply for collective punishments when English law required that people were found guilty of individual crimes then it would be something the ACT party could support. 
Instead in clause 10(3) we have an apology for “the cumulative effect of its actions over the generations which have had a damaging effect on the welfare economy environment and development of Ngati Tuwharetoa …”. What blithering nonsense! The damaging effect that would have been the lot of Ngati Tuwharetoa if land had not been individualised if swamps had not been cleared and if people had not been able to participate in the export economy would have been far more profound. 
For New Zealand First to have the ability to trumpet its opposition to the so-called principles and then for us to come across a bill like this that has this Parliament apologising for wrongs we cannot define and for actions we should be applauding in many cases rather than rejecting is to say that this country is lying to itself.