Davis Kelvin: Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngā Pōtiki Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngā Pōtiki Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11209. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker.Tuatahi māku e tautokongia ngā kupu hei whakatau i a koutou Ngāi Te Rangi Ngā Pōtiki ki roto i tēnei tō tātou Whare i runga i ngā kōrero e pā ana ki ō koutou kerēme. E te hoa e Mita hari koa ana ahau te kite i a koe i roto i Te Whare; tēnā rā koe. Mihi kau ana ki a koe mō ō kaha tautoko i ahau i taku taenga mai ki tēnei Whare Paremata nā reira e mihi kau ana ahau ki a koe. Tēnā koutou katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The first thing for me is to endorse the welcoming sentiments accorded to you Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngā Pōtiki into this our House in regard to the speeches relating to your claim. In so far as you are concerned Mita and friend I am overjoyed to see you in the House; greetings indeed to you. I really acknowledge and appreciate your tremendous support when I arrived in this House and therefore I thank you immensely for that.Thank you all.]In these settlement claim bills I think it is always appropriate to go over the historical background relating to the bills and the historical account. I have said it time and again that I get really fed up with the great unwashed ignorant people out there who say: “Why are these Māoris always in here putting their hand out wanting more money?”. It just irritates me to the eyeballs and I think it is really important that we go through the historical account so people understand first of all what was lost before they start hearing and complaining about what is going to come back to the tribes.I remember meeting some people down here in a restaurant in Wellington who attacked me basically by saying: “Oh you Māoris why are you always doing this? Why are you always asking for more money? Why have you got your hands out? When’s it going to impact on the people in your tribes?”. I basically had a stand-up argument with them and said: “You guys need to actually get your facts straight. You need to find out what really happened and stop being so ignorant.”In terms of Ngāi Te Rangi in the late 1850s and early 1860s they were going about their business quite peacefully settled there around Tauranga just basically doing what people do—finding food looking after the whānau—but then with the establishment of the Kīngitanga in 1858 and the Crown’s attempts to quell what was happening in Waikato Ngāi Te Rangi as well as Ngā Pōtiki supported their whanaunga over in the Waikato by taking arms food and supplies. It happens these days whenever countries go to war. There is always an economy created around the supply and the logistics and support for those battles. It was no different in those days. Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngā Pōtiki saw their whanaunga needing assistance and so went to their aid.The Crown though to quash this came and fought Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngā Pōtiki and confiscated some 290000 acres. The population of Aotearoa New Zealand at the time was probably around about that—everybody in Aotearoa New Zealand could have had a whole acre to themselves. That is the size of the parcel of land that was confiscated in the district in Tauranga. It was done to punish those Māori who opposed the Crown. When that land was to be returned Ngāi Te Rangi rangatira understood that 25 percent of the land would be held but it would beonly from those who had resisted the Governor. In the end that was not the case. The Crown retained 50000 acres.My uncle up in Motuōtau had a farm of some 200 acres. I thought it was a huge bit of land especially when I had to lift hay-bales. But some 50000 acres of land—this was not a punishment; this is tantamount to a form of genocide by excluding people from huge amounts of land. It was all about revenge on behalf of the Crown.I see here that there was a prominent Ngāi Te Rangi rangatira Hōri Tūpaea. He was associated with Paimarire activities and he was detained without being charged with any offence. I find it interesting that it is acknowledged—and I am sorry to detract here slightly from the bill—that it is wrong to detain somebody without charges and 150 or so years after that event we are saying sorry to a person who has passed away. If the Government is really really apologetic about detaining somebody without charges then we also need to address the situation where our whanaunga in Australia are being detained without charges.I remember when the Māori Affairs Committee went to Tauranga Moana to discuss the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 some 5 years ago. I remember a kaumātua standing up and telling us about the area of the coast where they used to gather kai moana when he was a little kid. It was plentiful plentiful kai moana heaps of food. Then he said that within a matter of years a port was built right where they gathered their kai moana. No consultation no asking—just plonk a port there. So what are people meant to do when their pantry their food stores are just taken away like that and they are made to feel bad—“Oh what are you worried about? The port’s here you can go and pick pipis somewhere else but this is good for the economy of Tauranga and for the Bay of Plenty.”Well my question is how have Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngā Potiki benefited from that port? Sure some people may have got jobs but the reality is their mana over those areas of land was just taken and gone. The unfairness of it all this is what I want people listening in to understand—the unfairness of these decisions by the Crown and by their agencies and the systems that they have set up to rob people of their livelihoods of their food stores. Ngā Pōtiki suffered similar fates. Their burial place of Tamapahore on top of a strategic maunga an ancestral maunga was disturbed for quarrying. Many of the non-Māori people probably do not know the significance to us of our maunga. Whenever we recite our pepeha we talk about our waka andI mihi to Mātaatua koutou ngā tuakana; ko ahau tētahi o ngā uri o Puhi te teina nā reira e mihi kau ana ki a koutou.[I greet you Mātaatua you the elder siblings; I am one of the descendants of Puhi the younger sibling and so I really acknowledge you collectively.]Maunga are so significant to us and along comes a council and just quarries—quarries disturbs the bones of their tūpuna. A rubbish dump was built on Rangataua tidal flats—a rubbish dump—where again they collected kai moanaand then later a sewage pond was constructed there. This would be the equivalent these days of someone going into Pak ’N Save and taking a crap in the seafood aisle. The place would be closed down. The shelves would be cleared it would be fumigatedand yet the Crown and the council at the time said it was OK to have a sewage pipe going through the kai moana - gathering spot and a rubbish dump leeching all of its waste into that estuary. And where do Ngā Pōtiki go to get kai moana then?This is the reality and it is a pity that the group of schoolchildren left the gallery a few minutes ago because this is what needs to be told. Our people growing up need to know the true history of our country. It does need to be taught in schools as was mentioned earlier in the House so that we do not have people hitting up politicians and Māoris in restaurants and pubs and saying: “Why have you guys always got your hands out and wanting more money?”. The reality is—and we all know—that the value returned is going to be less than 2 to 3 percent of what was taken and that is why these claims need to be settled. Kia ora.