Davis Kelvin: Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9738. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau):I te tuatahi ka huri ake ahau ki Te Atiawa nā koutou nei i whakamahanatia tō tātou Whare nā koutou i tatū mai nei ki konei kia rongo i tēnei te pānuitanga tuatahi o te pire e pā ana ki ngā hara o Te Karauna ki a koutou ō koutou tūpuna i taua wā. E Mahara e mihi kau ana ki a koe e te tuakana nāu nei i whakamahanatia ngā tūrū o tēnei Whare i tō wā nāu nei hoki i whakapau ō kaha mō tō iwi.[First I turn to address you Te Atiawa who warm our House by arriving here to listen to this the first reading of the bill relating to the offences committed by the Crown against you and your ancestors back then in their time. Mahara my senior colleague I take cognisance of the time you spent here warming the seats of this House and working tirelessly on behalf of your tribe.]About 2 weeks ago I visited Sir Mark Solomon of Ngāi Tahu a tribe that settled some 20 years ago. He heaped praise on the current Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Hon Christopher Finlayson. He said that one of the things that Chris Finlayson does is that he acknowledges the hurt and the pain before he acknowledges the quantums that come back. He said that that is really really important in that when we start talking about $85 million in redress people focus on the $85 million in redress and say what a huge amount of money. “What are all these Māoris—they’ve just got their hands out again. All they’re doing is just asking for more. We’re sick and tired of it.” It leads to questions such as in the survey in the New Zealand Herald the other day which asked: “Should Māori be getting special treatment?”.The reality is we need to look at what Te Atiawa lost. In 1865 some 1199000 acres were confiscated from Te Atiawa. Let us just let that register in our minds—the enormity of that confiscation. A whole tribe of people all of a sudden had nowhere to put their houses sink their roots or grow their crops. Let that settle into our minds the extent of that confiscation and how some five six seven generations later it has led to a whole heap of social conditions that Māori are not proud of.Let me just quote Peter Moeahu to the Waitangi Tribunal in 1990. He said: “When I look at a map of Taranaki and trace the confiscation line it is an arrow piercing the heart of my people.” Poignant words. Taurua of Pakakohi speaking to a West Coast Commission—and Nuk Korako mentioned that commission—said: “[I was told] ‘Taurua you and your people have done wrong in rebelling against the Queen.’ I answered: ‘I have not done wrong. I have not carried arms against the Queen but against you and you now say it is done against the Queen.’” The numbers of sins and hara as we say that have been committed in the name of the Queen and the Crown and it is only appropriate that the Crown rectifies those hara.Te Atiawa was peacefully occupying their land and all of a sudden these people turned up into the neighbourhood. They set up their houses they started ploughing the land and they were actually allowed to have weapons to protect themselves. Basically they used those weapons to dispossess Te Atiawa of their land. These days if a group of people turned up into a neighbourhood with a bunch of weapons and intimidated and threatened and pushed people to the side we would have a name for them. We would call them “gangs”. In the 1860s they were called “settlers”. How times have changed. These days if gangs turned up into neighbourhoods we would have the force of the Government the Crown the police—everyone would turn up and pounce on these gangs and lock them up and throw away the key. What happened in the 1860s? The Crown—the forces—turned up and who got locked up? Not the people who invaded the ‘hood but the people who were living there peacefully going about their daily business. They were locked up at times without trial sometimes with trial. They would be sentenced and they would go away; the sentence would end and they would still be locked up.The total dispossession of Te Atiawa’s land is what occurred. If I turned up in someone’s quarter-acre section in any town in New Zealand these days and a person had a house on this section and I said “Actually I like the corner of your section. I’m going to build my house. I will just build my house there.” and the house owner says “Oh sorry you can’t do that. That’s mine.” If this was 1865 I could say: “Actually you’re rebelling and so I’ve got the right to actually basically evict you—force you off your land. But because you’re rebelling I’m not going to take just that little corner of your quarter-acre section; I’m going to take the whole section. Actually damn it I’m going to take your neighbour’s section on the left and I’m going to take your neighbour’s section on the right. Oh no no. Actually I’m going to take the whole street. No while I’m at it I’m going to take the whole subdivision.” That is basically what happened to Te Atiawa back in the 1860s. These guys turned up made their farms Te Atiawa said: “Hey you can’t go there. This is our land.” “Oh you’re resisting. Off you go and because you are resisting because you are rebelling against us because you are taking up arms against the Queen we are actually going to take 1.2 million acres.”So when people are watching this debate and they are going “Oh here we go. Here’s another tribe putting out their hand. They want $87 million they want a seat on the council here they want control of Ngā Motu Islands. Oh my gosh. Aren’t we sick of it? When are these Māoris going to stop this?” actually let us not focus on what Māori are going to receive; let us focus in the first instance on what Te Atiawa have lost because when they were dispossessed of their land they were dispossessed of their rangatiratanga they were dispossessed of their mana they were dispossessed of everything. They were locked up the key was thrown away they were sent away and it is just wrong.So that is why this Parliament now 150 years later is doing something about it. People will say: “Look 150 years—you should have just got over it by now.” Well actually some of the people who were dispossessed are probably the grandparents of people sitting up here in the gallery right now. They know or knew people who were dispossessed. It is not ancient history; it is actually in their family. They feel it.So the grandiose plan was to settle some 20000 settlers from Waikato through Taranaki establish these settlements and set up shop. There was going to be 1000 miles of road. The trouble was somebody had to pay for that. So what happened is that the powers that be took out a £4 million imperial loan to pay for all these roads. Then they go: “Oh crikey. We’ve got a £4 million debt. How are we going to actually pay back that debt? Well let us just sell off all the surplus land at a decent price and let’s pay back that loan that way.” So you know invade an area confiscate all the land settle your new people there take out the loan to pay for the roads and the establishment of towns and everything and the way to pay it all back is to sell off any land you do not want. You are debt-free and all of a sudden you rule the joint.When land was finally returned—and we can argue whether it was actually returned—land was set aside. It was non-customary. It was individualised title—individualised title means it is just chopped up and it is easy to pick people off and especially when you are given the land and you are told to pay rates. If you cannot afford the rates you are told “Oh well we’re going to take your land.” so more land is gone. It was rough it was inaccessible so they could not grow crops to sell to the market to pay their rates or whatever.Then some of it was placed in the control of the Public Trustee who said: “Actually we are going to sell this off and we’re going to lease this bit in perpetuity to settlers.” So here is your land but you cannot have it. You can look but you cannot touch. How wrong is that? Every day these people drive past their land that in theory they own but they cannot do anything with it. They cannot touch it and there is some settler’s family that has been there for 150 years just milking it.Hon Member: Literally.KELVIN DAVIS: —literally milking it. You know what Te Atiawa lost is just a fraction—it is probably one cent in the dollar if that that they are getting back. So to anybody who is out there listening and watching and saying “Hey Te Atiawa you know get over it.” I just say actually take those rose-coloured spectacles off and have a big think through what was lost before you worry about what is being returned. Kia ora.