Turei Metiria: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Turei Metiria: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:21788] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 He mihi nui ki a koutou Nga Rauru Kitahi. In my speech on the first reading of this bill I described the Waitangi Tribunal’s interim Taranaki report which upheld two platforms of the iwi’s claim: land deprivation and disempowerment. At that time I said that by the term “disempowerment” the tribunal referred to the denigration and destruction of Maori autonomy or self-government. This bill may restore a modicum of the economic and land resources that were wrongfully taken from Nga Rauru—a restoration that is absolutely critical. But I do not believe for one second that the Crown has made restitution for the disempowerment and the denigration of Nga Rauru or for the destruction of their autonomy. 
During the select committee process the Maori Affairs Committee heard from a number of submitters including members of Nga Ariki hapu of Waipapa Marae. Their issues are discussed in the select committee report. They came to the committee to ask for help to have their claim Wai 772 taken out of the bill because they did not want to be part of the negotiations. They officially withdrew their mandate from the Nga Rauru Iwi Authority. They informed the Government and the Office of Treaty Settlements. They have been trying to organise themselves to negotiate directly and they want the lawful opportunity to proceed with their tribunal claim and have it dealt with by the tribunal. That claim is theirs and theirs alone. Yet they have been told that Government policy is such that they will not be dealt with. Government policy is to assert the responsibility for their Wai claim and to unilaterally negotiate and settle it without a mandate from that hapu. 
When Nga Ariki said that they were a separate identity and wanted to pursue their claim themselves the Government’s response was that it considers Nga Ariki to be an integral part of Nga Rauru Kitahi as they have a shared whakapapa and that the claims of Nga Ariki are not distinct in nature from those of Nga Rauru Kitahi. The Government has taken this hapu’s claim from them and prevented it from being pursued through a judicial tribunal—as a matter not of law but of Government policy. The Government has decided the whakapapa of this hapu and its place in its genealogy. 
I asked the Nga Rauru Iwi Authority which has pursued this settlement and fought hard to achieve it what its response was to the refusal of the Office of Treaty Settlements to drop Wai 772 from the negotiations and whether it had any power to refuse to include Wai 772 in its claim. The Nga Rauru Iwi Authority said that it did not; it was a fait accompli. It had no choice because Government policy says that the Office of Treaty Settlements decides who is negotiated with and what matters are settled. The denigration and destruction of Maori autonomy has absolutely occurred over and over again. In the struggle for iwi and hapu to have returned to them a tiny percentage of the wealth and resources stolen from them in the past they are forced to suffer the same deprivation and disempowerment that led to the claims in the first place. 
Nowhere else in our current legal system can the Government take a private person’s application to the court negotiate that application with people other than the applicant settle that case with people other than the applicant hand over reparation to people other than the applicant and expect gratitude for having done it all. No Pakeha person or organisation would stand for that usurpation of the justice process. That happens to no one except of course Maori. There would be a riot if this Government began unilaterally to negotiate and settle cases before the courts without the consent of the parties but it is OK when we are dealing with Maori hapu and iwi. There is no outrage and there are no riots because structural racism against Maori in this country is so embedded in policy and political actions that it has become almost invisible. 
The Nga Rauru Iwi Authority has done the best job it can to conclude this settlement given the constraints within which it has had to operate. The Greens are very supportive of a number of parts of this settlement particularly the paepae rangatira which can operate as a forum for leaders to deal with treaty matters so long as the Government engages in that process makes an active commitment to ensure that the process is effective and is prepared to explore similar forums with other hapu. This is a time when our constitutional make-up is under examination by this Parliament and by the people of this country and when the role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is to be discussed in our communities. We eagerly welcome the establishment of the Nga Rauru - Government paepae rangatira as one means by which that can occur. 
I mention briefly today’s launch of New Zealand First’s policy on treaty settlements. The policy sets a 10-year limit on treaty settlements and removes the capacity to use legal aid. It is in effect a land-grab because without legal aid support and without changes to the fundamental injustice of the direct negotiations process there simply will be no settlements. That will mean that the thousands of acres of Maori land stolen by Governments over the last 150 years will remain in the hands of the Government. It will mean that no hapu or iwi will receive even the meagre 1 percent of restitution that they can at least get now. New Zealand First which helped to confiscate the takutai moana from iwi Maori is now seeking to keep the confiscated land of the 19th and 20th centuries. 
Where does that leave all of those who like Nga Rauru have struggled for years and years with their Waitangi claims and with the direct negotiations process? It leaves them bereft of anything. New Zealand First and its Maori MPs should be ashamed. New Zealanders must accept that Maori in accepting those settlements are making an extraordinarily generous contribution to our country as a whole. Nga Rauru Kitahi has agreed as part of its settlement to forgo full redress for all the loss and prejudice it has suffered and to take the settlement—described as “fair in the circumstances”—rather than its actual rightful entitlement. The Green Party acknowledges and respects that gift from Nga Rauru and commits to the pursuit of a just process of redress for historical wrongs that is based on the needs and tikanga of hapu and not of the State confiscators.