Henare Tau: Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Tau: Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12414. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Third ReadingHon TAU HENARE (National):Meatuatahi kei a koe eaku rangatiratēnā koutou.Tēnā koutoui a koutoui haere maii rotoitōmātou Whare te Whare o te Raionatēnā koutoutēnā koutou ātēnā koutou katoa. Ki a koe ki a koutoungā mema o te Whareneitēnā koutou katoa.[The first thing is to you my elders greetings. Acknowledgments to you for coming into our House the lion’s den; greetings and greetings to you all. To you Mr Deputy Speaker and members of this House salutations to all of you. ]Having been around this place for a few years I have been able to listen to and see many Treaty settlements come and go. Without wanting to bewhakahihi which is sometimes my nature—Hon Shane Jones: No no.Hon TAU HENARE: —I said “sometimes”—this bill the Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill is one of the Treaty settlement bills that I have been looking forward to. My colleague my tuakana Shane Jones has mentioned one of the reasons why I have been waiting for this to come to the House. It is a glaring example of the theft of land and how the theft of land the confiscation of land can have such a devastating effect on the economy of its people its social make-up and its cultural make-up. You get all the three things that make a people tick and when that is taken away from you it leaves that entity in such an impoverished state that it is near nigh impossible to get out of. I take my hat off to Raukawa for being able to get out of it in such a way that they are still here today talking about their stories living the life that I am sure theirtūpuna would have wished for them.The settlement of this claim goes some way not all the way. It will never go all the way. We should know that—well we should; I am not sure whether Raukawa will—and we should accept that fact. My colleague Shane Jones talked about how iwi in America were moved from pillar to post and he is absolutely right. One of the stories out of America that I liken to a number of settlements and in particular this settlement is the Trail of Tears. The iwi there moved their whole kit and caboodle thousands of miles and then were turned away after being welcomed into Canada. They turned round and had to go all the way back.To have your own land used to settle somebody else’s grievance is I think to me worse than the act of confiscation. Who knows what the relationship was between Raukawa and Kahungunu. I am not sure and I will not try to figure that one out. But can you imagine the confiscated lands being given to your “enemy”? It beggars belief.Like my colleagues around the House I look forward as the chair of theMāori Affairs Committee to visiting the area and hearing the stories and the submitters on this bill. One of the peculiar things we face as a committee when we do these settlement bills is that we cannot change settlement bills unless of course the two sides agree. I have to say that for a long time until very recently the committee never delved into trying to change settlement bills. We had minor success.My last point is this. I make a call not only to Raukawa but to any of the community that so wishes and feels the need toto make a submission because there are far too many times when people do not make a submission and then they wake up one morning and want to moan and the deal has been done. Well the time to moan and the time to support as well is at the select committee. It is at that stage of the passage of the bill. I am sure I speak for all of my committee members when I ask submitters to please make it interesting. Do not copy the last 50-odd submissions so that it becomes just a bit of an exercise.Again I want to say to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations that he is one out of the bag. He is the sort of person who sees that there is a job to be done and goes for it. I think we have seen the number of settlements that have come across our table in our time as the Government as a testament—not boasting—that these things have to be done. I also want to thank my Labour colleagues Green colleagues New Zealand First colleagues andMāori Party colleagues for the collegial job that we do on theMāori Affairs Committee and not only for Treaty settlement bills. I have no compunction whatsoever in recommending the passage of this bill. Kia ora.