Henare Tau: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Henare Tau: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5346] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 We are talking about a Treaty claim. Although National would normally be in favour of a Treaty claim I want to raise a number of issues with the Committee this afternoon. 
The issue of major concern to my colleagues and me is that of mandate. The Te Arawa Maori Trust Board said that 93 percent of Te Arawa had said that they agreed with the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. That remark has put a few people crook because there is strong evidence that that is not actually so. One would think that when the Te Arawa Maori Trust Board said 93 percent of Te Arawa agreed with the bill they would point out that only 9000 people are registered with that board. Out of those 9000 people only 4000 took part in the process. That is only about 10 percent because the going korero—the going story—is that between 40000 and 60000 people whakapapa to Te Arawa in the last census. Putting about the story that 93 percent of those from Te Arawa have agreed with the bill does not seem to me to be very good. 
There are issues about ownership. We heard from Ngati Whaoa that they were given ownership of Lake Ngapouri. However this bill in settling a Treaty claim gives the ownership of Lake Ngapouri to the Te Arawa Maori Trust Board. Again I have some major difficulty with that and we will explore it as we go through the process. 
The removal of the jurisdiction of the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal must be looked at. Not in any other bill—Treaty settlement or otherwise—has this happened. There were questions about the model. Submitters have said that the model was based on a Government template from the Office of Treaty Settlements rather than on a specific indigenous model from Te Arawa. Instead the Office of Treaty Settlements said: “Here’s a template. We’ll give this to Te Arawa and they can sign it off. Then we’ll shoot up the road and give it to Tainui and they can settle their river claim based basically on what the Office of Treaty Settlements has come up with.” It is absolutely ridiculous. 
The annuity question is of major concern to me. In 1922 £6000 was set aside. No one has really been able to answer the question about what that money was for. Was it an out-of-court settlement or was it because Te Arawa gave ownership of the lakes over to the Crown and the Crown gave back £6000 as an annuity every year? When I asked a number of questions about this—what the Treaty breach was; what we were trying to fix up here—I was told that lo and behold the Treaty breach was because inflation had not been taken into account and there had been no rent review or no review of the annuity on a yearly basis. I never read that in the Treaty. I did not know that it was a breach of the Treaty if one did not do that for goodness’ sake! It does not talk about annuities in articles 1 2 or 3 and it does not talk about inflation or anything of the kind. 
Pita Paraone 
: It’s the principles. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That is right—it is a principle. New Zealand First is absolutely the guns on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi!