Williamson Maurice: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21870] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am delighted to take part in the debate on Part 1. I do not think there is any doubt that New Zealand had an appalling history of failing to honour the treaty that the Crown signed with Maoridom in the early days. There is an obligation for us to try to find some way to settle the Crown’s failure to meet those obligations. I was happy to be a member of Cabinet when it settled a number of those obligations along the way. Having said that I want to give a warning to everybody. 
Actually let me deal first with what Part 1 is about. It is an acknowledgment and it is to do with an apology. I do not mind how strong the apology is. 
Mark Peck 
: I’m sorry. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: It can be much more than: “I’m sorry.” It can be: “We were wrong.”; it can be: “We shouldn’t have done that.” Quite frankly I think that an apology often solves a problem and allows one to move on quickly. One thing I have learnt in politics is that whenever people get themselves on the wrong side of an issue they should very quickly say that they are sorry about it and move on. There is no question that from the Crown’s side if we want to talk in labour relations - type language about good faith we can say the Crown did not act in good faith. It did not act in good faith in a number of the settlements that have been done—in the cases of Tainui Ngai Tahu Taranaki and others. 
But I will say the following to the Maori claimants. I always have a really strong nervousness about any focus on the past. I want the claimants to make sure that their focus now once the settlement has been done is on their future in terms of breaking the cycle. For example I argued quite strongly in Cabinet when the first of these settlements was being done—Doug Graham was negotiating with Bob Mahuta—that there was no question that Tainui had been done a serious wrong. Doug Graham gave us a lot of evidence about what the British troops had done when they came south of the Bombay Hills and we learnt they had acted in a way that was just appalling. But my argument to Doug Graham was that we should try to settle the claim by trying to break what I thought was a cycle of dependency that Maoridom had fallen into. My view was that a good way to settle some of the claims would be to ask Maori to give us their best 500 kids each year whom we would put through the tertiary education system—not give them a low-grade hip-hop tour or twilight golf sessions—for free. I said that over say a 20-year period we should amortise the cost of that—$174 million I think it was—in order for us to see that figure. I said that we would break the cycle that we would create a Maori middle class that had high levels of productivity and that those people would be good-earning people who were focused on the value of education and so on. 
I guess I have a single message to the iwi for which this particular claim settlement is being progressed tonight. I say good on the iwi. It is probably getting only a very small percentage of what the actual damage to it was. However I ask the iwi please not to think that the best thing to do is to keep living in the past. I ask it to please say that it will make sure the settlement is focused on achieving outcomes. 
If I had reservations about the Tainui settlement they were dispelled dramatically by the way that Ngai Tahu began to act. Ngai Tahu just said that it would be there for the betterment of its people and that it would bring in whoever that took. That iwi brought in a few white honkies—I do not think “honky” is allowed any more is it Mr Chairperson? Was “honky” ruled out? I am happy to use the term because I am one of them. Ngai Tahu brought in some white honkies to manage the place. [ 
Interruption 
] If the Chairperson is shaking his head I will withdraw the term. I do not mind doing that but I did not think “honky” was ruled out. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What other colour do they come in? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Whatever. Honkies are only white I suppose; Gerry Brownlee is right. Ngai Tahu brought in whoever it took to get its investments to grow to get some relevant income streams for its people and to start to lift their performance. I say good on Ngai Tahu; I think it is a lesson to us all. A young guy from Ngai Tahu who was running Shotover Jet in Queenstown once came before a select committee. I have never seen a more stunningly focused businessman—he talked about outcomes and making it happen. There was almost a tear in my eye like I had when Michael Campbell won the US Open. I say good on Ngai Tahu. 
These settlements are about making sure that if we address the wrongs of the past we are careful about that. There have been wrongs in the past forever—for example what Britain did to the Jews.