Henare Tau: Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Henare Tau: Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18915] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I must digress just for a little bit and say how lovely it is to come into the House when you are in the Chair and hear those dulcet tones. Tena koe e te Whare. I am glad the member who has resumed his seat Mita Ririnui broached the issue of Ngati Wahiao and Tuhourangi because at the Maori Affairs Committee that was one of the more interesting avenues of discussion that we went down. It is all well and good for Maori to say they want to come to an agreement with the Government and want that agreement to be put into legislation but then on the other hand they are saying it should not be up to the House to be the adjudicator. But I actually think that our job is to be the adjudicator—a sort of benevolent referee—when there is an issue such as this one. 
I do not profess to tell Te Arawa what to do how to do it and when to do it. I do not think anyone would be brave enough to do that considering that we all have the same weapons these days. But I think that Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao should be uncoupled. I certainly think that there should be a reference in the bill to Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao but just because of an eruption some 100-odd years ago and the move to somebody else’s area that does not mean that they should be coupled. They have their own identities and their own ancestral identities. I suppose I can more easily explain the issue if I look at my own whakapapa—my own genealogy in terms of Ngapuhi and Ngati Hine. I would not like it if I or our people were to be referred to as “Ngapuhi-Ngati Hine”. Referring to them as Ngapuhi and Ngati Hine is not a problem and— 
Pita Paraone 
: Ngati Hine and Ngapuhi. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —or Ngati Hine and Ngapuhi as our chairman of the Ngati Hine runanga has said— 
Pita Paraone 
: Former chairman! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely. The former chairman reaffirmed Ngati Hine’s status as an iwi. But anyway I digress. Also it could be said that “Ngati Hine-Te Rarawa” or “Ngati Hine-Te Orewai” should be for example Ngati Hine and Te Rarawa and Ngati Hine and Te Orewai. I think it is wrong to use the process of the House to give effect to a new group. I have always known Ngati Wahiao and I have always known Tuhourangi; I have never known both to be put together. 
The interesting thing is that when we asked a submitter at the select committee—and I will not mention his name—what he thought about the inclusion of the word “and” in between Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao he said it would not be a problem. A week later because of pressure I believe that was brought to bear on that person he recanted his acquiescence to the inclusion of the word “and” and I thought to myself that that was wrong. I will not dwell too much on that issue but I think it is an important issue of principle. 
Another interesting fact that we came to hear about in the Maori Affairs Committee is that approximately 24000 people are affected by the settlement but that is not how many people there are on the beneficiary roll and that is certainly not how many people took part in the decisions. I always wonder how we are going to get around the issue of the mandate. Who holds the mandate: is it an organisation that the Crown is working with or is it the number of people who turn up on any given Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday or Friday? I am not trying to cast any aspersions on the mandate process here but we always have to ask how the decisions were arrived at. 
I also raise a concern that I was not aware of even as a former Minister of Maori Affairs and if the subject of that concern happened in my time I now want to publicly apologise for not keeping my eye on the ball. The concern is that in the settlement process the schedule of the settlement bill has all those other Wai numbers attached to it; basically it is the extinguishment of all those Treaty claims. I have a big worry that in the process we go through although we are all above board in terms of trying to sort out the bigger claim—the wider claim—there are always the little ones or maybe not so little ones that are lost in the negotiating and in the clamour to make an agreement. I specifically want to mention Ruamata. For the Ruamata people at the marae the airport is an issue and I am glad to hear through the grapevine that the Minister is going to move a Supplementary Order Paper that addresses that. But I think we should be very very mindful of extinguishing claims to the tribunal without going through a process of negotiation talking or getting the bigger claimant to speak with the other claimants whose claims have merit. I do not think we should extinguish those claims willy-nilly. 
I commend the select committee and its chair Mr Dave Hereora for a sterling job in getting this bill before it asking for submissions and listening to some quite detailed and intense submissions both in Rotorua and in Taupo. So I commend my colleagues who acted on the select committee. 
All in all we can say that the outcome of this bill will be good for Te Arawa. It will be good for the majority of Te Arawa but there will be some unfortunate claims that are lost in the clamour and in the backslapping as well. That is unfortunate and it is something that maybe the next administration—whoever is in it—needs to look at. Thank you.