Tirikatene Rino: Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5480. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena ra koutou e aku rangatira i roto i te Whare nei a Ngati Manuhiri nau mai hara mai. Hara mai i raro i te tuanui o te Whare Paremata e takatu nei. Tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Speaker. Salutations indeed to you my esteemed ones in this House and welcome to you Ngati Manuhiri welcome. Welcome under the roof of this House standing here ready. Salutations acknowledgments and greetings to you and to us all. 
] 
I rise to speak at the second reading of the Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill on Treaty settlement day. I too am pleased to have been participating in the Maori Affairs Committee which heard many submissions on the bill. As Minister Finlayson has just pointed out there were a couple of key aspects where I am very pleased at the way they have ended up in terms of clarification on those two particular points. 
I want to just start my speech and I have sort of had a theme on my Treaty settlement speeches. I like to go over the importance of understanding Maori history and whakapapa or genealogy—the family tree so to speak. My whakatauki Pakeha has been that to understand whakapapa is to understand Maori history. The rich tapestry—to pinch a phrase from my whanaunga there Tau—of the history of Aotearoa is woven like an elegant but sturdy whariki made to sit upon and hold weight with each strip of flax crossing back and forth and connecting to another strip going the other way. Soon those strips of lovingly prepared harakeke run out and make up the borders of the whariki. But that whariki represents the whanau hapu and iwi and each strand is a source of information and a font of tribal knowledge. 
May I acknowledge my own part in the weaving of this mat known as the Ngati Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill for I too am a descendant of Maki the eponymous ancestor of Te Kawerau-a-Maki. Our shared history tells of a chief of Ngati Awa-o-Runga-o-Te Rangi also known as Koro Atiawa named Maki who had as a wife the daughter of Mutunga a wahine by the name of Hinepueru and whose area of influence stretched between Taranaki and Kawhia. My ancestors of Ngati Rarua and Ngati Toa who back then were known as Ngati Mango and who were his relations went north to Kaipara and on to Hokianga in support of Maki’s take. He eventually returned to the Kaipara to settle the land with those inhabitants who never opposed him. 
That group of journeying warriors and family became the original Te Kawerau-a-Maki who intermarried and settled the Kaipara and came down into the Waitakere and other parts of Tamaki. Indeed my ancestor Tupahau was part of Maki’s journeys and so settled on Maungakiekie with a beautiful wahine of Waiohua named Hineteao. Years later another take took Tupahau back to Kawhia and Marokopa to assist more relations in his original homelands of the west coast between Taranaki and Kawhia. That is my connection to Ngati Manuhiri: Maki-nui of Ngati Awa-o-Runga-o-Te Rangi no te Tai Hauauru. 
Every taonga has a name and the name of this whariki that I have been explaining is “korero onamata”—of history. Its name suggests an association to history and genealogy and to the spoken word. These three things are woven into the whariki that lie before Ngati Manuhiri today. 
So to repeat to understand whakapapa is to understand Maori history. My other colleagues in this House will talk about the background to elements of the bill but there is a common theme that has been running through these readings and that is the equivalence of mana and whenua of authority and land in the equation that makes up Maori life. 
May I take the time now to talk about Te Hauturu-o-Toi as that was the big issue that we confronted as a select committee which is Little Barrier Island. This culturally important little island has played a significant role in the history of Ngati Manuhiri and indeed all Maori. In our korero onamata Hauturu is a float on the net of Toi-Te-Huatahi regarded by Maori as a founding father of this nation. So with the use of toponomy and whenua the naming of the land Toi used certain points from Hauraki to Whangarei as markers of his mana motuhake that authority. From those very early times of Toi through to the middle ages of the 1500s and the 1600s the mana of Hauturu changed several times until the arrival of the tupuna Maki of Ngati Awa-o-Runga-o-Te Rangi no te Tai Hauauru the great-grandson of Haumia of the Poutama region of North Taranaki. 
So my own tribal korero recalls Maki pursuing a foe all the way to the Hokianga where he captured his enemy but in that unique Maori way he let his captor go. Maki then returned to the Kaipara and with those original inhabitants and his original followers invested in the Waitakere and Waitemata regions eventually ending with his descendants Ngati Manuhiri a hapu of Ngati Wai having mana over the region we have spoken of today including Hauturu. 
 So this korero onamata is tika but today it is acknowledged by the Crown that Ngati Manuhiri will receive Te Hauturu-o-Toi back for a period of 7 days before gifting it back to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. We did include some clarification in recognition of the submissions that we received that it was not recognition of the mana to the exclusion of other iwi. So that has been reflected in the bill which we have reported back.  
There is a rich history in terms of these Treaty settlement bills and I have been able to outline my own connection. People must think “Gee that guy’s connected everywhere!” but literally there are a lot of connections and that makes up who we are in our unique history as Maori in Aotearoa.  
I would just like to mihi to Ngati Manuhiri all of the negotiating team and all of the great rangatira who were involved in the progression of this claim which is now through to this bill stage. We are nearly there. We are just up to the second reading and we are on the home stretch. I would just like to mihi to you all. The beauty is that by doing this mahi it is sort of opening up to me and revealing a whole lot of connections and a whole lot of the history that makes up as Tau said the rich tapestry that we have here in Aotearoa New Zealand as tangata whenua. So I would just like to mihi to them all and I commend this bill through to the next stages of the House. Kia ora ano tatou.