SpeechHon NANAIA MAHUTA (Associate Minister for Māori Development): He hōnore he korōria he maungārongo ki te mata o te whenua he whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa. Pai mārire. Kua rewa ake ngā karamihimihi o te Paremata nei ki ngā kokonga o tēnei Whare kia rongo mai a Ngāti Maniapoto kua tae ki te wā. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa. [Honour glory and peace across the face of the earth goodwill to all men. Goodness and peace. Acknowledgments from this Parliament have been elevated to the corners of this House so that Ngāti Maniapoto hear that the time has come. Therefore I greet you all.]It took me quite a bit of time to think about what I was going to say. I had constructed each of my contributions: on the first reading talking about the pou of the settlement; on the second reading talking about the relationships and how important it was to ensure that we made this settlement a living settlement; and on to this moment because this moment as I have acknowledged many times before has taken a long and turbulent path. We have to recognise the legacy of Wahanui the legacy of Taonui the legacy of Manga and everything that they brought with their conviction that Maniapoto would be in a position someday to be able to be the architects of their own destiny and to hold the mana of their determination within the palm of their hands. I thought OK if I was going to make a contribution that was going to be somewhat useful what would that look like?" and I thought back to the moment where I saw this ad in the paper that the Maniapoto Māori Trust Board were advertising for negotiators—who does that? But when I looked at it I did a couple of things. Firstly I said to my darling—I asked him. I said "Look I'm quite interested maybe if they'll have me in trying to do something useful for Maniapoto." and he jumped in boots and all. I said "Well you know that your job is. It's going to be the driver and looking after our kids." So I asked him and he was supportive right from the get-go. I said "It means that we need to talk to our whānau who are looking after our kids to make sure that they're going to be OK if I do this mahi because I don't know how long it's going to take but I think I could do it." I got the tick there.Then I went to go and see my Uncle Dan. You know the Dan I mean—Dan Ormsby. He lives in Maniapoto and he didn't have too many nice things to say about the trust board at that time. So I thought "Well I'll go and ask his advice and I'll see what he says." Well after he got over himself around his views about the trust board I said "Yeah but I think I could do something useful here. But firstly uncle where is the rohe of Maniapoto anyway? What did Nanny Pop tell you?" and he said "Well you know the story goes 'Mokau ki runga Tāmaki ki raro—that's Maniapoto.' " So I kind of thought about that and I said "I need to grip up some of my support here." The other person I went to go and see was the late Koro Wetere my predecessor—our predecessor Mr Speaker—and with great humility when I went to go and see him I asked for his advice and he said "Yes girl. You can do it—you can do it for the people." So with those I think acknowledgments of "Yep it's something to do." I then got myself into the position of sitting alongside Mook Hohneck and Peter Douglas. Now our negotiating strategy evolved but I'll characterise it like this: we didn't trust each other right at the beginning. We looked each other up and down and each one of us thought we were better than the other I guess—well I know they did; not me! But if I characterise our negotiating technique as we got to know each other Mook cleared the path. He was the sledgehammer—he cleared the path—Peter Douglas lit the fire and then I had to come along with the water and put it out and that's just our negotiating technique with our own people before we even got in front of the Crown. But I respect what they brought to the conversation as we started on a journey and before even that journey began I went to the then leader of the Labour Party which happened to be the Hon Andrew Little who is now our Minister for Treaty settlements. I sat down and I said "Look I think I can do this." I declared the conflict and all of that and said "This is how I can manage it as a parliamentarian so that there's not going to be any trouble here and if you allow me the time to be able to do this I can serve the people whom I'm committed to serving within my electorate. I can do it this way." He listened to me and he thought and he said "Yep. OK you can do it Nanaia." So I owe you two debts of gratitude: one is for the fact that you enabled me to do it in Opposition and the second is as Minister your commitment to ensure that we got to this point. Then there was the Treaty settlements Minister of the day Chris Finlayson—and I take note of the comments of Todd Muller the previous speaker. He was absolutely committed to ensure that Maniapoto could reach a settlement in a way that characterised the very essence of what they wanted to achieve. He was the first Minister—or actually the second Minister if you don't count Koro Wetere and myself—to go to Kāwhia and it was at Kāwhia that we delivered the special factors presentation and talked about the doubly compounding impact of raupatu in Waikato raising the aukati for 20 years and then Maniapoto looking after Waikato who were dispossessed and also some of our Taranaki whānau who were dispossessed. It had a doubly compounding impact and it impressed upon Chris Finlayson that there was a double-duty obligation on behalf of the Crown to address these issues and we outlined a number of other things.But the reason why going to Kāwhia was so important is that for Maniapoto their sense of self-determination didn't begin and end with the Crown. Maniapoto owned ships and were trading out of Kāwhia with Waikato and were producing wheat and all of that. So he got a flavour of the fact that Maniapoto were a self-determining iwi. We were able also to pull together as we worked along this pathway the strength of what the Maniapoto Trust Board had already done and they've had some ups and downs—mandates have been challenged and all of that. I want to acknowledge Uncle Tiwha Bell—who is here—Keith Ikin as deputy and also Janise Eketone who at the time was the chief executive and her team of girls. I think about Charmaine—you're still there—and Marissa Tremayne and all the many girls that were there—or women ladies; aroha mai—leaders who helped at that time and I thank you for that. Then I had wisdom around me and I'm so fortunate. I think about John Kaati Pat Stafford the late Bob Koroheke Rovina Maniapoto Miria Tauariki and Muiora Barry. We were the team that travelled around and listened to the iwi and that said "Well this is where we're at." and then "What are you thinking?" and it was very much a two-way conversation. But the thing I learnt about Maniapoto is that they didn't start with a disempowered mind-set in terms of their aspiration. If I had to characterise the difference between Maniapoto and Waikato Maniapoto had a sense of self-determination that was very much invested in their sense of place. Yes 90 percent of our people live out of Maniapoto but 100 percent of the aspiration for the iwi is in Maniapoto: how do we have a settlement that enables the iwi and empowers the iwi so that we can attract our people home to contribute and strengthen the aspirations of the iwi—and that's what sits around the House today. Every iwi member that has come down to Parliament and is in the House and also at Pipitea listening to this settlement wants to know that this is an opportunity for them their children and their children to follow and I salute you all because you bring your tūpuna here to witness the statements of the Crown of the Government and of this Parliament so that in five years' time when we do the health check on the settlement everyone will know whether or not it has delivered what we anticipated it would deliver. I have high hopes—I have high hopes. Sitting across the table was David Tapsell. I don't know what he thought about us as negotiators really. He had a really steely look you know that commercial lawyer look—the kind of look where you think "I don't know what we're going to get here today."—but I did appreciate his very up-front straightforward way of working. I also appreciated the technical group that enabled me to think differently and in no particular order—and it's very difficult when you start naming names—I do want to acknowledge Doug Ruki. Every time I fashioned a part of the settlement that held the kiko of the aspirations of the people I'd say to Doug "How am I going to characterise this?" So many of the whakaaro etched out in the deed of settlement and some which are in the legislation—Doug you had a big hand in that. When I listen to your compositions that our kids are singing I think to myself that we are so fortunate to have our own reo experts and I thank Shane Te Ruki too for your awhi in this space and Tom Roa and Paul Meredith for what you did with Te Ohaki Tapu. You educated our people on the way through so that none of this would be a surprise for our people. This is who they are—this is who we are—and you educated our people in a way that we can all stand proud about what those legacy negotiators left to us and it is a treasure trove of opportunity that we can teach our kids. Heather Baggett Tania Simpson Liz Munroe Leonie Simpson and Tamati Kruger were at the end of the phone every time I got to a point in the negotiations where I asked "Hey how did you deal with this?" and they generously gave their experience to me in ways that I could just figure some of these things out. Koro Wetere I have already highlighted. From a comms perspective both Nevada Halbert and Katherine Barry—you guys helped us communicate to the people and I now see that the board Te Nehenehenui has gone over where we humbly started in terms of trying to communicate well with our whānau. All of this has been done so that we can yes recognise the struggles of the past and the pain of the past but—more importantly—lift that and put it in front of ourselves and say that this is why we have to go forward this is why we have to do more and this is why we have to invest in ourselves. There's one thing not in the settlement and it's a commitment to te reo Māori. You will all ask why it wasn't in the settlement and I need to say it: the reason why it's not in the settlement is because we go back the kawenata. The kawenata said that the strength of Maniapoto is in our Māoritanga and only we can give that to ourselves not the Crown. So I made it really clear that we're not going for a reo Māori contribution in this settlement. It's going to be up to Te Nehenehenui to actually make their own commitment to reo which will see our people flourish wherever they are in the world—wherever they are in the world.Lastly—my final mihi—the history of Waikato Maniapoto is inextricably linked. The stories that we heard this morning at Pipitea are our stories but our ability to give life to that relationship requires us to continue to live those stories in ways that we can continue to connect as Waikato Maniapoto as people who support uphold and support the values and aspirations of that movement that started at Te Puna o te Roimata. Again that's up to us—nobody else. It's up to us—nobody else. Kia mutu te riri me tiri te rākau pai. [To end the conflict we must extend the olive branch.]That was the final part of the special factors presentation that I gave to Chris Finlayson to set in place that the aspiration of the iwi—that will never falter. If I have a conflict that must be declared today it is that I am proudly Waikato Maniapoto and I am proudly standing on the legacy of a history that they created for us so that we can be here at this moment—at this moment—and say that we are products of hope vision and aspiration. And we will not falter because that legacy is for our kids their kids and those kid that we don't even know yet and they will be proudly Maniapoto. They will be proudly saying what they can contribute to the wellbeing of their people—hopefully. Nō reira e mihi ana ki a tātou katoa i roto i te ngākaunui me te manawanui o ngā mātua tūpuna. [Accordingly within the commitment and determination of our forebears I acknowledge all here.]Mr Speaker because you are unable to speak today I noted on your Facebook page that there two salient comments that you'd made because you've been a negotiator as well. The first one was that this is not about compensation; this is redress and it's important that the people are clear as they go forward that we have to keep making this an opportunity and that's what I took from what you said. The other one was about the benefits—that this must benefit our rangitahi. Thank you for your words thank you for your leadership thank you for being the member for Te Tai Hauāuru to help in your way us get to this point. It is much appreciated. Nō reira tēnā tātou kia ora mai tātou katoa."