Paraone Pita: Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParaone Pita: Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10566. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PITA PARAONE (NZ First):Ā tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Taku hara taku hara taku hara e kara e Kihi! Kāre kau au i kite atu i a koe i mua nā te mea wēnā te mate i a mātou e noho i tēnei taha nā te mea ki reira i tērā taha o te pūtea kia ahatia? Tēnā pea ā te tau e tū mai e aroha mai ki a koe kia koutou hoki kia pōti mai ki a mātou kia haere ki tērā taha o Te Whare kia ahatia? He kōrero noa iho tēnā![And so thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. My fault my mistake and my oversight friend Kihi! I did not see you before because that’s what happens when we sit on this side rather than on that side of the ledger so what can be done about the situation? Perhaps in the coming year you all might pity us and vote for us so we can go to that side of the House how about that? Just simply idle chatter that is all!]Back to serious business. I stand to support the Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill. I am going to take this opportunity because I want to address the students who are in the gallery. Today we have a bill that will help settle a Treaty claim for a tribe called Ngāti Pūkenga and here in the gallery you see descendants of that iwi. I want to take this opportunity because in another forum we have talked about the need to include the history of these battles and of the claims as part of the educational curriculum. We have been told that that is a choice that is to be made by the local community the board of trustees and in fact the school itself. I just want to say to particularly your teachers that they may consider taking the opportunity of taking a copy of this bill and the report relating to this claim and allowing it to be part of the curriculum for your school so that your generation may learn more about the history of our nation. Although some of it would be quite embarrassing to this generation I think it is important that we do know the background to the history of our nation. So teachers take the opportunity.Again I take the opportunity of also supporting the welcoming of you into the House today. You are part of history. You will be part of history because this is the first reading of the Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill which has come here as a result of claims that Ngāti Pūkenga has made to the Waitangi Tribunal. The bill is all about an apology from the Crown in terms of its breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. It is also about commercial redress which will help—I should not say “appease” but certainly it will help—the wrong that the Crown by its actions inflicted on the tribe.You should remember that this tribe did not go to war and yet the Crown saw fit to confiscate its land and this is what this claim is all about. It is about trying to redress that wrong for the people of Ngāti Pūkenga. It is also about the urbanisation and industrial development that has occurred in Tauranga and in which the tribe has been somewhat marginalised from the valuable sources of kai moana at Tauranga Moana at Maketū and Manaia that have been lost due to pollution and sedimentation of waterways. They believe that they have benefited little from the rapid urbanisation of Tauranga since 1945.Ngāti Pūkenga believe that they have been inappropriately marginalised in histories about the Crown-Māori relations in Tauranga Moana and so in this bill the Crown apologises for bringing war to Tauranga Moana apologises for unjustly extinguishing all customary title to land within the Tauranga Moana confiscation district and apologises that Ngāti Pūkenga did not receive the same opportunity as others to protect their interests in Tauranga Moana after the confiscations. So on that basis and on other things that are articulated in the deed of settlement I certainly support this bill.Also I want to acknowledge the negotiators. They were Rāhera Ōhia Shane Ashby Te Awanuiārangi Black Harry Haerengarangi Mikaere Āreta Gray and Dominic Wilson. I have no doubt that their task has not been an easy one and we will certainly find out once this bill comes before the Māori Affairs Committee just how difficult that task has been because there will be members of the tribe who will have an obvious different point of view from those of the negotiators and that is what I would be very interested in hearing: what are the things that they would have liked but did not get and why they did not get them.I want to quote from a comment made by the chairman of Te Au Maaro o Ngāti Pūkenga after they signed the deed of settlement who said that the signing of the deed of settlement was a time for reflection not celebration. He said: “It was bad enough that our land got confiscated in the first place but to then be shut out of the Native Land Court process in the 1880s that saw some iwi get some of their land back really rubs salt into the wounds. … It was a courageous decision by our people to overwhelmingly accept this settlement and give us the opportunity as a people to move forward.”When I look at the details of the different land interests that form part of this settlement bill I think that some people particularly those outside of the tribe will probably think that Ngāti Pūkenga are getting too much. I just want to remind this House that any settlement that comes before this House will never fully compensate the iwi. We have said this before and as each claim comes before the House we will continue to say that because it is a fact.During the third readings of each of the settlement bills people have commented on the generosity of the iwi to accept that settlement knowing full well that they are entitled to much more. Kia ahatia? I look forward to the bill coming before the Māori Affairs Committee and again I commend the bill to the House. Tēnā koe.