Mahuta Nanaia: Maungaharuru-Tangitū Hapū Claims Settlement Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: Maungaharuru-Tangitū Hapū Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17144. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tuatahi tēnei ka tāpiri atu aku mihi ki a koutou kua uru mai nei i roto i tēnei o ō koutou Whare ki te whakarongo ki ngā kōrero e pā ana ki tā koutou kerēme Tiriti. Nei te mihi maioha ki a koutou katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. In the first instance I add this salutation of mine to you collectively who have entered this House of yours to listen to the speeches about your Treaty claim. Heartfelt greetings to you all.]It gives me great pleasure to join with my colleagues Meka Whaitiri and Rino Tirikatene and the Ministers to be able to support the passage of the Maungaharuru-Tangitū Claims Settlement Bill and make it law. None of us in the House could hope to express the rich tapestry of history good and bad that has led to this point in time. I suspect people have been up very early travelling to get here. I suspect that there has been a lot of excitement from people to be able to say finally that it is done and we can move on. I suspect that there are a lot of kaumātua who are thinking about other kaumātua who are no longer with us because this is an important day for you and it is an important day for us. It is not only a day to remember history but a day to celebrate the future and one your children grandchildren and mokopuna will be able to hold on to because this is an opportunity as well.I was not on the Māori Affairs Committee for this particular bill so I thought well what I would like to do is have a look at the cultural redress components of your settlement because often that is the place where the stories are told and where the histories have been retold and will continue to be retold. If New Zealanders were interested to know what was happening in their own area in relation to Treaty settlements they would go to the cultural redress components of Treaty settlement legislation. This is what I found.Interestingly enough with the help of Google and the help of my colleague Meka Whaitiri I managed to find a number of very interesting things. Firstly I remembered that during the by-election Meka and I were travelling through her electorate Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. I do not know how many kilometres she had already travelled but we went past Lake Tūtira. You know seeing is holding on to things. She proceeded to tell me stories about the area and Lake Tūtira and things like that. I notice that a significant component of your Treaty settlement is the vesting of four lakebeds back to you: Lake Tūtira Lake Ōrākei Lake Waikōpiro and Lake Ōpouahi.As I used my Google engine I said: “Well gee Lake Tūtira.” I remembered that we went past that and I found that both Lake Ōrākei and Lake Waikōpiro were close by. Further investigation showed that they are on a number of websites. When New Zealanders come to look at the Hawke’s Bay and see what they could experience these are some of the lakes they get steered to because there is wildlife there there are walkways there is access to these particular lakes. If you were not a frequent visitor to the Hawke’s Bay Lake Tūtira might be a reason why you would want to go there.I found that particularly interesting. I thought: “Well if these are being vested back as reserves with public access then why are people going there?”. So I had a look and there is a wildlife refuge order over the lake. It makes particular mention of people being able to use the lake but you cannot have powerboats on Lake Tūtira. Well I did not know that. But it did then give me a sense of the fact that people enjoy this place because it is a place where you can experience nature and the wildlife around it and they also utilise the lake in ways that people get enjoyment out of.We have a connection albeit remote and it is through Lake Ōpouahi. I understand that round the lake there is a pest-proof fence. I rather suspect that that pest-proof fence might be the same kind of fence that we have got at Maungatautari in Cambridge. The whole idea of the pest-proof fence for Maungatautari was to regenerate and repatriate natural wildlife into the area so that you can keep the predators out and get our wildlife back there. There are stories in that because I suspect that it is a place where our tūpuna gathered because of the wildlife that was there. It may have been the kai that was there. So that is our connection albeit remote.I was really interested to see that on your websites around restoration around preservation and around telling stories—and it is all in Google—there are a whole lot of activities that have already happened; activities you are already doing prior to the Treaty settlement to repatriate the things that belong there in ways that you can be very proud of.Then I come to some of the statutory acknowledgments and deeds of recognition. Here is a story or two. The peaks of the Maungaharuru Range are—well there are so many pictures on Google that actually it is breathtaking. It makes you want to experience them and have a look for yourself at what is to be shared in the Maungaharuru Range. But it is the Mangapūkahu Scenic Reserve that I want to come to. Interestingly I found out with a little bit of research that the background of the reserve was connected to the Arapaonui Block which was in the New Zealand Gazette in 1860. It had its native title extinguished but there was going to be a reserve put together. So I am kind of weaving back through the history finding this out. What it indicates is that this is perhaps the reserve at Mangapūkahu.But when I go back to our history here in Parliament there was a petition that came before Parliament from Peter Bloomer in 2008. He petitioned the Māori Affairs Committee in particular because of the lack of access for Māori to get to their sacred sites. I thought: “Well that is interesting.” It was the former member for Te Tai Tonga in 1987—and Rino’s auntie—Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan who made a point of actually ensuring that that petition got some recognition by the Department of Conservation at the time. That was interesting because then what it indicated was that yes this was a reserve; yes it had sites of significance. There needed to be an opportunity to ensure that Māori could continue to go back to the reserve because at the time it was seemingly under Crown land administration. That particular petition was supported by the Māori Affairs Committee in terms of reviewing that. So we do have walking access there in that particular scenic reserve. I thought to myself golly gosh if you are reading through the deed of settlement and you just read the name of the “Mangapūkahu Scenic Reserve” you would not have any sense of what was really happening in this area or any sense of all the bureaucracy I guess that had to be got through to be able to repatriate important sites of significance back to people.So again I reiterate that I am but a humble newcomer to the full extent of the rich history that you have within the context of your settlement. But can I say again and reiterate in support of your Treaty settlement that if anyone wanted to have a glimmer of the essence and the rich tapestry of history that belonged to you the people of Maungaharuru-Tangitū Hapū then they should go to the cultural redress section of your settlement. You have done well to get to this day. A lot of people have worked really hard within your team and I guess mention has to be made of the Crown officials in the Office of Treaty Settlements whom you have had to negotiate with and certainly the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations for his efforts to get this progressed as speedily as possible. I wish you well. I know that the future will look bright but more important when your children tell these stories they can visit their places with pride and know that those stories can continue to be told to their children and their children after them. Tēnā koutou katoa. Kia ora.