Ririnui Mita: Central North Island Forests Land Collective  Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ririnui Mita: Central North Island Forests Land Collective  Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:18958. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chairman. I will just respond to the questions that Chris Finlayson asked earlier in relation to the resolution process. I took my time in rising to respond to them because I thought that other speakers might also ask similar questions. I did note that after Chris Finlayson sat down the contribution from the Hon Georgina te Heuheu was along similar lines and she may have provided him with some answers to those particular concerns. 
I think it is important that we understand that this resolution process was developed by the collective and that clause 7(4) contemplates the possibility of litigation. I cannot give the member a guarantee that lawyers will not become involved but it was certainly the view of the collective that due to their experience of lawyers the role of lawyers should be minimised. Members should also understand that the decisions cannot be appealed but a review of the process can be sought to ensure that the process itself is consistent with the tikanga-based process in schedule 2. 
There were also queries about the proposed tikanga-based mana whenua resolution process that I just spoke about and also about the allocation model that was developed solely by the central North Island collective. As we heard from the submitters by and large a large percentage of them had the opportunity to participate in the process of determining the model for allocation and what we did find interesting when we came to the mana whenua concepts in terms of allocation or in terms of rights was that those concepts were defined as ahi ka roa which translates as continuous undisturbed; in other words permanent occupation. I would think that every iwi involved in the central North Island collective would qualify on that particular principle. 
But the collective also went to the extent of looking at other areas of mana whenua and other concepts. One that is new to me is ahi tahutahu which basically means provisional shared looked after by somebody else. It also can mean temporary occupation. In other words it suggests that a particular iwi may be transient and may move around considerably. I do not know that any of those iwi that are mentioned in schedule of the bill are in that position. The last concept of ahi mataotao which I often hear about is one of abandonment or lack of representation or underutilisation of land or no utilisation of land at all. I could not imagine anywhere in the country where that particular concept may apply although from time to time we do discover new iwi developing amongst the more known iwi and these particular iwi become the centre of debate whether or not they actually exist. 
Those are issues that iwi themselves will deal with and it is certainly not over to the Crown to determine whether a particular concept applies to particular iwi in a particular circumstance. I know I have just skimmed over many of the queries but I found that although many of the speakers asked questions by the time they resumed their seats they had actually answered the questions themselves.