Clendon David: Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Third Readings[Sitting date: 08 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6424. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):Ā tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Ko te mihi o te rā ki a koutou ngā manuhiri ngā rangatira ngā kuia ngā tāngata o ngā hapū katoa o Te Hiku tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa.[Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. So acknowledgments of the day to you collectively visitors esteemed elders elderly womenfolk and people of all Te Hiku subtribes; accolades congratulations and well done to you and us all collectively.]As ever it is a privilege to stand on behalf of the Greens to speak to a settlement bill the end of a journey but the beginning of perhaps a much longer journey which all of these settlements do represent. This is an auspicious day an important day for Te Hiku and for Northland—more generally for Tai Tokerau. It does represent an enormous amount of work that has been done. I join with other people who have spoken recognising and acknowledging the work of those who have gone before us who are not here to see this celebration but without whose thoughts and whose hands often over a lifetime of work this day would not have been reached.Of course it is all in the interests of improving the lot of those who live with us today and of those who will come after us into the future. I think it is something that we can all agree on: that our aspiration has to be to create a better future for our mokopuna for our rangatahi. That should be the goal that focuses all of our work not only around these bills but indeed around others.The Te Hiku area the far north contains some of the most beautiful some of the most powerful some of the most iconic landscapes of anywhere in our country or I would argue of any other country. Sites of extraordinary cultural importance like Te Rerenga Wairua and Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe are not only renowned for their physical beauty but also for their cultural importance both to Māori—tūpuna Māori and present-day Māori—and indeed to Pākehā who have become in their time indigenous to this country as well. So it is important that we acknowledge the significance of the place and of the people who have lived there and who will live there in the future.Unfortunately too often when people think of Northland and even indeed the far north they think of deprivation of neglect and of ill health both of the landscape and of the people and those two of course are inextricably linked. We need to turn that round and this settlement bill is a step. It is quite a large step towards putting the resources into the hands of those who can turn that round so that in time Te Hiku and Northland—Tai Tokerau generally—will be associated with well-being with prosperity and with opportunity. These are the things that we can aspire to collectively and this today is an important step towards achieving that goal.As ever when settlements are signed and when bills come through this House there is almost inevitably as night follows day a backlash from people who often should know better. Concerns were expressed some months ago around the matter of a co-governance model for Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe. There were ridiculous claims that Māori would immediately exclude people from the beach that barriers would be raised and that roads would be dug up—nonsense from somebody who should know better. I am sure that over time we will see that in fact the co-governance structure that puts hapū in their rightful place—having significant decision-making authority over the beaches and over the landscape generally—is an appropriate model and it will contribute to our collective well-being as it evolves.I would like to just quote briefly from a submission made to this bill by Haami Piripi the chair of course of the rūnanga of Te Rarawa. He was writing actually about an earlier negotiation. I do not pretend to have read all the submissions. I was not on the select committee. It is a 575-page bill. But this paragraph did jump out at me as capturing the essence of a lot of what it is that we aspire to do with the Treaty settlements. Matua Piripi said: “We finally reached a point in negotiations that we gauged was at the edge of the Crown’s tolerance zone and might be acceptable to our people and communities. It was not perceived as the delivery of justice but rather as seeding what could be grown to nurture our people’s future.” I think that captures a lot as I say of the essence of what the negotiations and the settlements need to do. They need to push everybody’s boundaries. The starting positions are often so polarised that there is real difficulty in getting to a point of agreement. So it is good that everybody feels a little bit of the pain and indeed that does push their boundaries.He talked about not the delivery of justice but a step towards that. The bills cannot and will never fully restore what was lost what was taken. That is beyond our means. In a sense what must be done—is that full restitution full restoration—cannot be done and we need to acknowledge that but nevertheless strive to get the most appropriate and the most just outcomes that we can to ensure our future well-being.I think the model for the future settling of grievances and injustices to some extent exists within this bill. There is an agreement around the Kohukohu police station that for the moment yes it will reside with Te Rarawa but there is a gentleperson’s agreement if you like that if it is more appropriate in the future to go to Te Ihutai then that is what the outcome will be—that is the superior claim will be acknowledged in time. The point of that is that—in similar fashion—I think this settlement effectively removes the Crown from the equation in terms of what happens in the future.Let the remaining matters of dispute and concern—and they are real and they are significant and some of the events at Kaitāia Airport in the last 24 hours or so are testament to that—be settled by Māori between Māori in a way appropriate for Māori. Let it be that the ongoing concerns are settled in ways that are respectful of the conflicting claims of iwi of hapū and indeed of whanau.To some extent the notion of a post-settlement settlement between Māori interests alone is acknowledging that the affected parties are inheriting a mess not of their making a mess resulting from generations of colonisation—the overturning and indeed the destruction of what were existing structures of governance of management and of decision-making. Te Hiku is not the first and will certainly not be the last occasion where Māori inherit a dysfunctional situation where Māori take on the burden of seeking a more substantive and a more lasting level of justice which may emerge from a reconciliation within and between iwi hapū and whānau.Beyond a certain point these matters are best dealt with and settled not in this House not in courtrooms and not in the office of some Government agency but in the rohe on the marae. People of goodwill from within those communities are best placed to resolve and to make good the future for the people in their time. So this settlement as complex as it is as subtle as it may be at times is nevertheless like all settlements—it is still something of a rough cut. The lines are bold and therefore somewhat crude and to some extent unsatisfactory.The ongoing task for our Māori communities led by our kaumātua and our kuia is to better define those boundaries—to define those boundaries that divide and the relationships that link our communities more finely more accurately and more justly. While today is the end of a process it is the beginning of a longer process: a challenge to exploit the opportunities that are now available to the people of Te Hiku. I have no doubt in my mind that they will rise to that challenge and that the future will be better for it. Kia ora.