Jackson WillieHon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development): Tuatahi e tika ana ki te mihi ki taku whanaunga a Neville. Nō reira e te whanaunga i maumahara tō mahi i te kōkiri i ngā kaupapa Māori mō tātou te iwi Māori i roto i Pōneke i roto i Aotearoa nō reira e te whanaunga moe mai moe mai moe mai e koe ki ngā ringaringa o ngā matua tūpuna kua riro ki te pō rā.Ka nui tēnā. Ki a koutou ngā hapū o Ahuriri tēnei te mihi ki a koutou kua tae tēnei mai nei i tēnei wā ki te tautoko ki te whakanui i tēnei kaupapa. He Hōnore nui ki te tū ki te tautoko te kaupapa ataahua i tēnei wā. Nō reira ki a koutou e mātakitaki mai i tēnei wā tēnā te mihi ki a koutou. Haramai haramai nau mai tēnā anō tātou katoa.[Firstly it is appropriate that I acknowledge my relative Neville. Therefore to my relative I remember your work championing Māori issues for us Māori in Wellington in New Zealand. Therefore my relative may you rest in peace in the hands of the ancestors who have passed.I move on. To you to the hapū of Ahuriri I greet you. You have come here today to support and celebrate this initiative. It is a great honour to stand and to support this beautiful initiative at this time. Therefore to those of you watching now that is my greeting to you. Welcome welcome welcome one and all.]I just started off by giving a little mihi poroporoaki to one of our whanaunga who died a few weeks ago known to everyone: Neville Baker a person who advanced kaupapa like this all the time—controversial kaupapa—and as there for every Māori and Pākehā actually; one of the great bureaucrats of Aotearoa. He passed away a few weeks ago. I wanted to mention his name in the House because he's a man who deserves to have his name mentioned in the House. He would have supported this kaupapa. I'm not sure which side. He was pretty controversial Neville with his Shelly Bay experiences and his history but much loved by people of all sides—Labour National and Māori Party supporters. I remember that whanaunga very well.I want to welcome our people here today. It's a shame they couldn't be here in the gallery with us coming all this way. You know I give our apologies that they can't be here in the House. A long way to come to be sitting watching this on screen—e mihi ana ki a koutou. I hope you enjoy this day and celebrate this day.Can I support our Minister Andrew Little with his kōrero and congratulate Ahuriri Hapū who have waited many years for this settlement. As you heard their journey started in 1988 when they first filed with the Waitangi Tribunal. So it's been a long long road and we've reached this time in terms of redress and compensation.In terms of breaches of the Treaty I have to be clear as I always am with these types of settlements that compensation can never ever justify the loss the pain and the injustices that our people endure. Yes the Treaty settlement process can never properly compensate our people but it's an opportunity to acknowledge to reflect and to admit the sins of past Governments. It's a process that I hope will provide opportunity for our people. I hope that Ahuriri people will be looking at this $19.5 million and thinking Well what can we do with this?" It's hardly going to make them rich or billionaires but it could make some differences over the over the next decade or so. For example who would have ever thought that Tainui and Ngāi Tahu would be worth $1.5 billion today after settling for $170 million in 1996? So the settlement can work and if managed well could do wonders for rangatahi and the people of Ahuriri.So well done to the leadership. I want to thank those people for their mahi as Minister Little did: Piri Prentice Heitia Hiha Barry Wilson Joinella Maihi-Carroll and my long-time friend Tania Eden who has shown all her bureaucratic experience I think particularly over the last few months as she's navigated her way through this settlement. It's important also to acknowledge the Crown side as the Hon Andrew Little did: the work done by the brilliant Sir Michael Cullen the Hon Christopher Finlayson chief negotiator Paul Swain and mine and Meka Whaitiri and Rawiri Waititi's whanaunga Tā John Clarke.It's important to reiterate how this hapū has been left landless. The social and economic consequences have been catastrophic. It's always important I think to make that observation. I want to acknowledge Ōmarunui because that was mentioned also by the Minister today. When the Crown attacked Ōmarunui a crime was committed—a terrible crime. People were killed and a number of our people were shipped off to the Chatham Islands. It's caused huge division between members and hapū and whānau. So I think it's important too as again Minister Little did to acknowledge the Wai 2573 claimants who are addressing outstanding historical claims with the Crown at Ōmarunui. I encourage officials to conclude this agreement as quickly and as sympathetically as possible.I am pleased that along with the $19.5 million we have an agreement that the Ahuriri Hapū will be kaitiaki for Te Whanganui-ā-Orotu and the islands. They are prized taonga—an appropriate recognition. Also Ahuriri Hapū will receive cultural commercial and financial redress including a kaitiaki fund to assist the work of the estuary management committee a right to purchase Ahuriri Station a right to purchase the Crown shares in Hawke's Bay Airport the Crown's gift to Ahuriri Hapū the gift of Conservation House in Napier and land at Pakake and shares in the Kaweka Gwavas Forestry Company.Of course as I said earlier this still cannot compensate for the loss but it is a start and it is a beginning. The real test I suppose is: can we pull together to forge an opportunity together? Like all settlements there are people who have opposed this one and we as members have been lobbied strongly by people who don't want to settle who don't think that is the way to go. That is one of the things I suppose that happens in terms of the Treaty settlement process all the time. Whether it was Tainui whether it was Ngāi Tahu there were always people who said no. Eva Rickard was one of them in Tainui. Sandra Lee was one of them in terms of Ngāi Tahu. So these are the pressures that our negotiators have to work with.In this case we have my old mate and Minister Meka Whaitiri's old mate Denis O'Reilly who's been lobbying us so strongly it's not funny. Good on Denis in terms of his mahi. He's been a huge advocate against us and his wife Taape and Hinewai Ormsby. We understand that there is some opposition to this as there always is with settlements. But we can only work with the mandated group. That's always the strategy that we have to follow. That's always the way we have to go and that has been the case with this particular settlement.So I say to those people the challenge will be to see if you can work with your whanaunga and find a way navigate a way. It ain't easy; we've seen that. We see that all the time. But this is the process that we're in unless we want to abandon the whole settlement process and start from scratch again. That's not the case I don't think so I'll say to those people that I think they're coming to terms with this. There were two or three—or might have only been one was it? Was it only Dennis I think at the select committee? It doesn't matter. I respect where they're going but I also respect where our negotiators went and where our leadership went led by the people who I talked about today with Tania Eden now as the chair and they have settled on a process. So I ask those people: can you work it out? Perhaps that is the biggest challenge. And I ask them: kia whakakotahi mō te kaupapa [come together for this initiative].I'm sure you can all work it out. But it's an honour here today to talk about this to talk about the history to talk about the background to talk about the fight and to talk about the challenges ahead. I mihi to all our whanaunga who've come here today. Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou. Tēnā nō tātou katoa."