Donnelly Brian: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19614] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 Kia ora ki nga mema o te Paremata nei. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora ki a Ngati Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau. No reira tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to members of this Parliament. I greatly acknowledge you. Greetings as well to Ngati Tuwharetoa of Kawerau. And so greetings greetings and greetings to you all 
.]  
As an opening remark I say that I was surprised to hear a request for Jill Pettis to speak up. I have to remind the House that having been in the fortunate position of being on the other side there used to be a wall of noise that came from this side. The behaviour was terrible compared with how people carry on nowadays. It was so loud that we could not discriminate any voices but even through that the voice of Jill Pettis could still penetrate and therefore I am surprised that she was unable to penetrate the light barracking from across the other side of the House today. 
I rise to respond to the remarks made by Stephen Franks about New Zealand First and our consistency in voting with regard to the existence of references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation. 
 It is true that New Zealand First is opposed to the operational or functional use of such references in legislation. But it is quite mischievous to say that if there happens to be any reference whatsoever to the Treaty of Waitangi in a bill then New Zealand First must automatically vote against it. I invite the House to consider the logical conclusion of such an expectation. If Stephen Franks had his way we would not be able to champion a bill such as the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill which the Rt Hon Winston Peters has referred to which will expunge all references—operational and functional references—to the principles of the treaty from legislation. We would not be able to do that. It just would not make any logical sense. So I want to point out to the House exactly what he is referring to in this piece of legislation and it is not a functional reference. 
The first is the text of the apology in English. The apology has been negotiated by the Crown and the iwi and has been put into the legislation. It makes reference to an apology for the breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles. That is something that is not part of the functional elements of the legislation itself. 
The second part—and I think even Stephen Franks was a little bit concerned to be pointing this out—is that the reference is in the definition of “historical claims”. The bill states that a historical claim is founded on a right arising from the Treaty of Waitangi or the principles of the treaty and then it lists a whole pile of other things. But when we refer to the clause it refers to it in fact says that this particular settlement makes sure that there is a finality to all those claims. So no one—not from this particular hapu or iwi—could ever come along in future and say they want to ask for certain things under the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. So it basically expunges any future usage of such an expression or reference. The member for Tainui across the House knows that at times we have sat together on legislation knowing that the “principles of the treaty” as an expression is very very vague and does not express precisely what the legislation or the Parliament or the Government wants to achieve. 
So I just make the point that New Zealand First is able to vote for this bill because we support the settlement process and because the bill makes no functional reference to future decision-making or to advising future decision-making around the expression or the concept of the principles of the treaty which we well know are so vague that no one can tell us what they are—not the Prime Minister or anybody else. The Government does not know what they are. In fact the Minister of Local Government said that the way the Government ensures that the principles of the treaty are effected by local government is to expect them all to abide by the principles of the treaty. But when the Minister was asked what the principles were he said it was not up to the Government to tell local government what the principles of the treaty are that they are supposed to abide by. So in this particular case New Zealand First is comfortable and is able to vote for this legislation. As I say we supported the Ngati Awa legislation. The problem was in terms of that functional reference within the legislation. 
I want to make just one more little comment and that is in response to the speech made by Mahara Okeroa. He made the statement that all Maori members in this House should support any legislation that has been designed by iwi. That raises some very important constitutional questions around our democracy. Why would people vote for Maori members in New Zealand First for example who say they support the policies the principles and the leadership of the party if those Maori members are then expected to purely and simply put all that to one side and just agree to what has been agreed to between the Crown and a particular iwi. It is Parliament that is passing this legislation. It is the Crown that has made the agreement but it is Parliament that passes the legislation and therefore it is Parliament that creates the precise wording of the legislation. If there is an expectation that members would come to the House and automatically give their vote to the legislation—not to the agreement but to the legislation—then that is in fact overriding the supremacy of Parliament and I ask Mahara Okeroa to think that through. He is a thinking man and I am sure he will think it through and come to a rightful conclusion once his error has been pointed out to him. 
But other than that New Zealand First is supportive of this bill. We are happy that in expressing the agreement within the legislation references to things like the principles of the treaty—which we well know are vague and lead us nowhere—have been left out. It enables parties such as ourselves to give our full endorsement and support to the legislation.