Finlayson ChristopherHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): On behalf of the National Opposition I indicate that we will be supporting this legislation with great pleasure. It was tremendous to be at Te Aute College on 26 September 2015 to sign the deed of settlement and I welcome to the gallery today some representatives of Te Aute College about which I'll say something in a short time. It's a great college almost as great as Hato Pāora. My gym instructor who's an old boy of Hato Pāora asked me to drop that into my speech and I have obliged. There are a couple of points I want to make. The first is to emphasise what the Minister said about how important it is for people to read the facts. The facts are set out in the bill and form an important part of the apology because what happened here it wasn't raupatu but it was a very serious breach of the Treaty and huge tracts of land across the magnificent Heretaunga Plains were lost. That is why this settlement is such a significant settlement and that's why the Crown really has to do its very best to make sure in a post-settlement world that this settlement is successful. Can I acknowledge as the Minister has the tremendous contribution of the negotiators. Time and time again I have said in this House that to be a negotiator on behalf of an iwi in its Treaty settlement negotiations requires huge courage and commitment and that was certainly the case here because the negotiators are people who work on their day job and then at the end of the day instead of going home and resting are called to meetings to deal with the negotiations and that applies also over the weekend. The young folk here who are witnessing this third reading should take some time to thank people within the tribal leadership for their contribution to the negotiations because what they did as I said has required great courage and commitment. In any Treaty settlement negotiators have to deal with important mandate issues. Because Heretaunga Tamatea was very well organised mandate disputes here were minimal but none the less they can be very trying and time-consuming pieces of work and it can really be very testing for negotiators. So they had to deal with that and they did it well. Inevitably there are going to be overlapping claims and the negotiators dealt with those issues very well and above all they have to recognise and accept that what is offered is something that's bankable for the iwi. I always remember the final stages of the Ngāti Porou negotiation when my old friend Apirana Mahuika got up at the crack of dawn and wandered around Wellington wondering whether he would initial the deed of settlement. Was it an appropriate settlement—what would Ngāta have said about it? So those are the kinds of huge issues that weigh on the negotiators as they come to decide whether to accept the deed of settlement and that is why to acknowledge the negotiators is not a formulaic recitation of thanks or a formulaic acknowledgment but a sincere tribute to them for their outstanding contribution.The Minister finished his speech by saying—as I have said in the past—today marks the beginning of a new relationship and he's absolutely correct. But whether or not these settlements succeed is dependent on how the Crown reacts. Iwi and their members never forget but the Crown all too often forgets and so these settlements will be successful if the Crown acknowledges and acts on the basis that it is a new day a new relationship—a relationship based on equals not paternalism. Earlier this week I was asked a number of questions by journalists about a certain settlement where there are some issues that have arisen and they said to me Should the Minister be taking a closer look at it?" and so on. These are funds that were provided by the Government and the questions themselves seemed to me to suggest that there's still an understanding out there or a feeling out there that the relationship between the Crown and iwi is paternalistic. Well it's not. When there's a settlement then the relationship does change. Iwi have the resources to grow and develop their area and it's not for the Crown to be adopting some kind of overlord or paternalistic relationship toward them. So I always when it comes to Treaty settlements in the third reading cross my fingers and hope for the best that the Crown won't let the side down. I'm always mindful—and the member for Te Tai Hauāuru knows this—of what happened with Ngāti Apa. They'd been told during negotiations with Michael Cullen that a certain piece of land was not available for settlement because it was a strategic piece of land and then a couple of years after the settlement it was put on the market. That's the kind of thing that destroys trust and it does need to be avoided at all times. There are two points that the Māori Affairs Committee was concerned with and that I want to refer to. The first one deals with the Te Aute College Glasgow leases—something that I am very personally interested in because I know the contribution that this great college has made to New Zealand—and those leases to put it bluntly are an abomination and there needs to be a resolution of them for the future. This college has produced some outstanding people over the years. And just to go through a few of them: Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngarimu the soldier of the Māori Battalion who was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1943; the great Te Rangi Hīroa—Sir Peter Buck—who was a member of Parliament for Northern Māori; Sir Howard Morrison; Sir Sidney Mead; the great Sir Āpirana Ngata a good Nat who was the MP for Eastern Maori for many many years an outstanding Minister of Māori Affairs; Sir Māui Pōmare—[Interruption]—they hate it when we say these things. Sir Māui Pōmare another great Nat who was the member for Western Maori and Minister of Health; Sir Pita Sharples who wasn't a great Nat but he was a great guy and is a great guy and a person I worked with very closely when he was Minister of Māori Affairs and co-leader of the Māori Party. He's the one who launched the reforms of Te Ture Whenua which the Labour Party has ditched and shame on them. William Brown Turei archbishop and primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa; Piri Weepu; Norm Hewitt—you've got to get the All Blacks in there—Manu Bennett; and so many others. This is a school that should be flourishing and it's not flourishing because of those hideous Glasgow leases. So I hope that over the next little period we will as a Parliament be able to look at that issue because it does need to be resolved.And the second issue relates to the Hawke's Bay Regional Planning Committee. There've been some concerns about that. Look it's early days but I strongly say to all iwi who are involved with the Hawke's Bay Regional Planning Committee: get involved in it. It is going to take time to bed in. It was the subject of a very careful negotiation led by Dame Fran Wilde when she was negotiating the Ngāti Pāhauwera settlement. It is the right model for the Hawke's Bay. There are going to be teething problems because the new Jerusalem doesn't arrive in five minutes but it's worth working hard on and I am sure that if everyone does their bit that's the model that will work very well for the Hawke's Bay.So in conclusion it's been great to work with Heretaunga Tamatea over the years. They have got some wonderful wonderful people who have been involved in the iwi for such a long time. The one person I particularly want to mention is Liz Munroe who is a good friend of mine and she and I worked together in a law firm many years ago. With the kind of leadership that Heretaunga Tamatea has I believe it's going to go from strength to strength. And so I too commend the bill to the House."