Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa ngā uri o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou.[Greetings to you all to the descendants of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. Warm greetings to you all.]I rise to speak in support of this settlement and of this legislation but also as the deputy chair of the Māori Affairs Committee to report back to this House on the extra work that the Māori Affairs Committee undertook to make sure that we were finding the right balance in reaching a supportive position of this legislation and taking into account the 173 submissions that the committee received on this bill since May this year.First I want to congratulate the members of the settlement trust who have represented their claims with a great deal of dignity and ambition for their people and to thank everyone here who has come to listen to the debate today and to support those members who have done this bravely and should be proud of the result that we will celebrate later this evening. First let me just canvass the hara that has occurred that the Crown has come to the table to address with the settlement trust: the forced cession of tens of thousands of acres of land at Maungaroa through threats of armed violence; the Crown's failure to obtain the consent of key rights-holders when purchasing land in the Wairarapa and Tāmaki nui-a-Rua regions; and the purchase of more than half of Wairarapa and Tāmaki nui-a-Rua which virtually destroyed what was the base of Ngāti Kahungunu in that area. But not only that it has considered in this bill the failure to address and provide for many of the education health and economic benefits which Ngāti Kahungunu had been led to expect as true payment for their land and the failure to give suitable lakeside reserves in exchange for the tuku rangatira of Wairarapa Moana in 1896. Those are grave breaches of the expectations of the iwi and of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and it's right that in this Treaty settlement process the Crown has come to understand the cost to the iwi of that and what it means to right this in the future.Treaty settlement bills are important because they don't just go to the issues of land the issue of a quantum of the settlement they also go to the future relationships. Things in this bill like the taonga tūturu protocols for example are important to enact today because they create a package of rights for the iwi to claim kō and things which are discovered in land that are taonga that should be protected by the iwi. It's important that that set of protocols which is given effect in this Treaty settlement bill and is often not discussed in the Treaty settlement process is put in place today so that that cultural that artistic history is able to be celebrated from now and that it's not put off. I also want to touch on the work that the Māori Affairs Committee did to understand the purpose of what was joint redress for Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Rangitāne in Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill. That was a separate bill that this Parliament has been considering and it gives effect to specific cultural redress shared by Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua and Rangitāne o Wairarapa and Rangitāne o Tamaki nui-ā-Rua and it's provided in specific deeds of settlement. That was considered separately by this House because the nature of that joint settlement is that there does need to be agreement around that and that all through that process the committee heard from the two groups about the aspirations to work together. We worked through areas which were still under discussion but I absolutely have faith that today and in the coming years the leadership of both iwi will be able to come together on that joint settlement redress that has an impact also on this settlement.Now Madam Speaker if you'll let me talk to the two claims Wai 85 and Wai 429 which the committee looked into really carefully. We sought further advice from our officials we sought further comment from the parties involved and we did really listen carefully to the oral submissions and carefully consider the written submissions of those parties. Wai 85 and Wai 429 claims are within the Waitangi Tribunal. Wai 85 is the claim about Pouākani in Southern Waikato and it was brought on behalf of the Wairarapa Moana Incorporation. Wai 429 involves Ngāumu Crown Forest land in Southern Wairarapa sought on behalf of Ngāi Tūmapuhia-ā-Rangi and both claims were at issue right the way through the select committee's process and have been before the courts. I raise these because I want to be really clear that the committee's extra work in these areas was about not only really understanding any rights which might be affected by this bill but also about providing an opportunity for committee members to come to a degree of consensus and a degree of shared understanding about what this legislation would have an impact on for that discussion of what rights might exist and it was important for us to be able to go through that process. And I think that my colleagues around the committee did a very careful job at examining on behalf of the House what those rights were and we came to a view—which is within the select committee report—that the most important thing for us was for the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations to be very very clear with Parliament about the reasons that he and his Cabinet colleagues might make a call to proceed with this sort of settlement. And that is what he has done in no uncertain terms today.So let me take you through those reasons that we heard. The Minister said today that he made that call and the understanding of the select committee was that one of the reasons it was done was that the settlement trust made an informed decision to proceed to settlement and continued to support this settlement legislation being introduced before the hearing and that a clear majority of the Ngāti Kahungunu claimant community who engaged in the vote on the enhanced settlement package voted in support of proceeding to settlement. Those are important considerations when we consider those who would lose out of Parliament delaying a decision around this settlement bill. Further to the point of delay there has already been a three year delay since progress with the deed of settlement was deferred to allow the Wai 85 and Wai 429 claims to be heard by the tribunal. This was also really important to the committee when we consider both what is lost in the return of the cultural assets and in the value of the commercial redress. Particularly important to me and one that I had plenty of questions for submitters and counsel on was the tribunal's preliminary determination that it should not recommend the return of the land to the two claimants—Wai 85 and Wai 429 claimants. Instead it preferred an iwi representative group and further to that there was no challenge seeking a judicial review of that determination and the High Court expressly noted the continued relevance of the tribunal's preliminary determinations on both of those claims. My point there is to bring the House's attention to when we think of how these claims might progress in the courts in future and who might lose and who might gain from that. The tribunal already made determinations which found that it was very unlikely that resumption of the value of the assets would be returned to that one particular incorporation. I think as well it's useful for the House to have on record some of the committee's discussions around the process of settlement for the Crown. The Crown here needed to balance a range of often competing interests including the prejudice that further delay would cause to the interests of the broader iwi who support the settlements and Rangitāne and others such as Raukawa who are affected by the ongoing litigation. And I come back to the comments of Shane Reti at the last reading of the joint redress bill which I very much support that we are looking to reach a position where we can enjoy the peace and prosperity for this iwi that settlement would bring. I think it's really important for the Crown here to be able to step back at this point to hand over this settlement and this process to the people who it is for. And I thank them for their leadership. And that's why I support this bill.