te Heuheu Georgina: Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
te Heuheu Georgina: Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4739] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: 
 I am very pleased and proud to speak to the second reading of the Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill. I commend the Government for finally getting the bill to this stage. I also say that I am satisfied with the work that we did in the Maori Affairs Committee and that this bill should certainly now proceed with hopefully swift passage. 
As the Minister has already stated the settlement that gives rise to this bill involves the Ngati Ruanui people of South Taranaki. It aims to give effect to a deed of settlement dated 12 May 2001 which has been ratified by a majority of Ngati Ruanui. Specifically 88 percent of the adult Ngati Ruanui voted with agreement from 60 percent of the total which in terms of a mandate and a brief to go ahead and do something is a very reasonable majority. I will come to the issues raised by Pakakohi and Tangahoe later because I would imagine given the depth of feeling with which they came to the select committee to raise their concerns they will still be feeling some loss that this bill is now proceeding through the House. 
The Ngati Ruanui claims are settled through this bill. It is important to note that under clause 15 the Crown is released and discharged from all obligations and liabilities in respect of the Ngati Ruanui claims. The clause states that the settlement of the historical claims effected under the deed and the legislation is final. That is a feature of all the settlement legislation that comes through the House and hopefully it gives some confidence to all both inside and outside the House that given goodwill and settlement packages that are fair and reasonable these can indeed be said to be final settlements of the historical claims of iwi. 
The settlement provides for an apology. The background to that apology is the Crown’s waging of war in Taranaki the land confiscations that followed the Waitara purchase and the invasion of Parihaka in 1881 following a period of passive resistance. That was not a good period in our history and the Minister has alluded to that. I want to remind the House that things happened during the wars that were waged and during the invasion of Parihaka that none of us can be proud of. All of us therefore should be pleased that with the passage of this bill this House makes some atonement for the dreadful things that happened to these people. 
Interestingly enough those actions still live on in the way that these people present themselves to us today. One can only imagine that if people are living with a history in which their tupuna were invaded and imprisoned without trial with some being sent away and imprisoned in caves down in the South Island—some never to return and others to return but to no homes—even though that happened back in the 1880s the legacy of those kinds of injustices to a group of people may in the minds and hearts of those people never be made right. Hopefully this settlement at least shows good faith and goodwill on the part of the Crown and this Parliament to make up for those actions. 
The settlement provides as I say for an apology and also for a redress package which consists of commercial redress in the form of cash and properties and also cultural redress. That package is extremely important because with the alienation and the dispossession of land came the loss of an economic base which the tribe no doubt widely expected to be able to develop along with the emerging nation. That is why the tribe signed the Treaty of Waitangi but that did not happen. But while the redress package is important it is also very important that the Government on behalf of the people of New Zealand makes this apology. As I say people who are interested might want to read through the full preamble which sets out exactly the reasons that the apology is important. Essentially the commercial and cultural redress follows the same kind of package that was developed for previous settlements. It has proved to be a worthwhile structure for settlements and I would imagine that future settlements will also be based on the framework that is now present in this bill. 
This is the first settlement in Taranaki as the Minister referred to and like the Minister I would hope it acts as a spur for both the Government and the other iwi of Taranaki to move sooner rather than later to settle their historical claims. Nobody needs to feel guilty about this claim because none of us here today was responsible for anything that happened to Ngati Ruanui but we have a great opportunity to make up for the things that were done in the past. I think it is always a very worthwhile thing that the House does to show that the Crown is capable of good faith and of making atonement for the actions or inaction of past Governments. I always feel proud when we do one of these settlements and I hope everyone in this House does too. 
None of these settlements will be perfect. Nothing can ever be done to fully make up for the losses incurred by iwi that have resulted in these historical claims but we in New Zealand are foremost in the world in the way in which we address these injustices. I think New Zealanders should be very proud of the fact that we have a framework in place to address them and that when we put our minds to it we are very diligent in going about settling these injustices. There can be no equality of citizenship while this sort of injustice sits and waits to be atoned for. 
This is a good night. This is a worthwhile debate. The select committee hopefully did its job reasonably well. We were satisfied that the issues raised by Pakakohi and Tangahoe had been well traversed by the Waitangi Tribunal. There were also some Cabinet minutes available to us. The issues about whether those two sub-tribes should be included in the settlement had been well traversed. The select committee has no power to change a deed of settlement. The best that we could do was to make sure that due process was followed and in this case it appears that it was. I hope that in time those who feel disaffected and who came before the select committee with much depth and emotion will be able to put that behind them as well to join together with the rest of Ngati Ruanui and as the Minister says to use this settlement as a beacon to go forward into the future.