Turei Metiria: Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Turei Metiria: Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4746] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou katoa. He mihi nui he mihi aroha ki a Ngati Ruanui Tangahoe me Pakakohi. 
[ 
Greetings to you all. An affectionate and appreciative greeting to Ngati Ruanui Tangahoe and Takakohe 
.] 
First I must pay my respects to those kaumatua kuia hapu and whanau who have travelled all this way tonight to be here for the second reading of this bill and to those who have worked so terribly hard for it and are now able to celebrate it. The journey for them to this point has been long and arduous and many hardships and sacrifices have been made but this particular process is almost at an end. To those whom this bill causes sorrow we acknowledge your pain and your struggles also. 
We in the Green Party have weighed very carefully our support for the restitution of claims and our deep concern about the treaty settlement process. For this particular settlement we have decided in these circumstances and out of respect for Ngati Ruanui to support this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] Kia ora. The restoration to the iwi of land particularly wahi tapu and the ability to enhance and advance Ngati Ruanui hapu through the settlement are for them significant gains and we acknowledge Ngati Ruanui’s efforts to achieve some form of justice and restitution for the grave losses suffered by the mana whenua of Taranaki. The Greens acknowledge that delegated representatives of the Crown have breached and continue to breach te tiriti rights of Maori and we support resolution of and restitution for all outstanding historical and current breaches. 
We gave very serious consideration to abstaining from the vote on this bill. We are loath to suggest to the Government that we support the general process by which this settlement was reached. I want to make clear to the Government that we believe that the treaty settlement process is seriously flawed and cannot fully resolve the breaches of te tiriti because of those fundamental flaws. It is some of those issues that I want to address tonight. 
In the Maori Affairs Committee many submitters talked of their feelings of exclusion and their fears that their sovereignty and identity will be subsumed by the settlement process. It also became clear that the Ngati Ruanui Muru me te Raupatu Working Group was not responsible for those fears but that the process through which all of these people sought redress was inadequate and unable to deal with the complexity and enormity of the issues involved. One submitter in particular Te Miringa Hohaia talked of the duress of poverty and of how this was the only deal in town for the relief of that poverty and he also spoke of how the failure to deal with the whole of the Taranaki tragedy has led to the picking off of iwi to everyone’s detriment. He is absolutely right. The Government has failed to find an adequate way to truly compensate mana whenua in the Taranaki area for the crimes committed against them. 
I am talking about not just money and property because there are other ways by which the injustices could be acknowledged—initially and most important by the Government being prepared to look at the process itself. Maori have never been able to be actively part of constructing the process by which they are to obtain resolution of their historical grievances. They have never been properly involved in the development of the treaty settlement process. 
The process was constructed in the late 1980s and involved at that time Cabinet Ministers and officials. It was not until 1993 after 4 years of planning that it was finally recognised that Maori ought to have some level of involvement other than through Te Puni Kokiri. There were 4 years of the Government planning and constructing a process and only then was it taken out for consultation. 
It would come as no surprise to many that the submissions and concerns raised by Maori were not taken up by the Crown which by then already had 4 years of investment in its process. Never mind that Maori had 150 years invested in that process and had thousands of deaths and hundreds of wrongful imprisonments and theft and dispossession invested in it. Never mind that the whole point was to recognise the treaty relationship and remedy the failures of the Government in the past. 
We can see those failures in the bill. On page 5 the preamble talks about the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 which was used to confiscate lands of Maori whom the Crown had assessed as being engaged in rebellion against the authority of the Queen. It was under that Act that much of the land of Ngati Ruanui was taken. Sixty years later in 1926 the Sim Commission was set up to investigate that Act and the confiscations under it. That commission’s recommendations were very poor. They were not discussed with iwi and were never considered by them to be adequate. 
The honourable member Georgina te Heuheu said in her speech tonight that there cannot be adequate restitution and I agree. There cannot be adequate restitution for what was stolen and taken and done. That is why we must look at what this process does and we must not confine our views about how to make restoration simply to propertarian rights. It is about much more than that. It is about constitutional structures and it is about empowerment at a level that this Government and previous Governments have not ever considered. It is only by engaging with Maori in a direct process to determine how that restitution should come about that there will ever be anything like true restitution. 
It is imperative that the treaty settlement process is properly reviewed by the previous claimants by current and future claimants and by Maori in general who are affected by those claims and need to be able to contribute. As with any restorative justice process Maori as victims must be able to have some control over the process for their own restitution. Let us be very clear that the fact that Maori engage in this process does not mean that they endorse it. I return to the words of Te Miringa Hohaia: this is the only game in town; this is where the duress of poverty is at its most stark. Maori will do what is best for their people and will take up the meagre opportunities for redress available to them but there are very few opportunities and it is a heavy obligation on rangatira to make every effort to achieve whatever is possible for their people. So much mana is vested in the successful outcome of this process—a process that does not respect that mana. 
I turn now briefly to my minority statement in the select committee report. I have enormous respect for those of Tangahoe and Pakakohi who went through the court and tribunal processes in order to assert their tino rangatiratanga. Theirs has been a real struggle to have their issues recognised and taken seriously and they will feel aggrieved by this bill. It is the underlying settlement policy of dealing only with large natural groupings that has seriously undermined the tino rangatiratanga of hapu within this claimant group—within Ngati Ruanui. This further exacerbates the injustice that the settlement is designed to cure. The Greens believe that the Government should develop with Maori a diversity of models for restitution premised on the tino rangatiratanga of hapu as the first principle. Clearly hapu must not be punished for choosing not to participate in a Crown process that is extensively designed for their benefit but that fails to recognise their needs and concerns. The Crown policy could be changed to engage with individual hapu as set out in te tiriti. It could engage in a resolution process that focuses more closely on ongoing relationships and less on fiscal and time constraints. It could accept alternative models for resolution that are determined by Maori themselves. We believe that it is the perpetuation of a serious grievance to require Maori who disagree with the process either to participate or to be left without restitution. 
Finally I acknowledge and recognise the members of the Maori Affairs Committee who were involved in hearing the claims and submissions on this bill. It is true that the best that the select committee can do is hear since we cannot make any changes to the bill but it is important that we do hear those claims and ensure that everyone’s issues are truly acknowledged. Kia ora koutou katoa.