Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa ngā mihi nui ki te rangatira o Ngāti Pūkenga.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Acknowledgments to you all and an acknowledgment of huge proportions to the noble chief of Ngāti Pūkenga.]I really want to talk about the right of first refusal (RFR) issue that has come up because I was one of the people who were most exercised about this but before I do that I want to thank the Māori Affairs Committee for engaging because it did. I also want to acknowledge Ngāti Pūkenga's passion to get to this point the hard work and the need to get this settled because they put so much work into this settlement and it is a credit. I also acknowledge as other speakers have the passing of Te Awanuiārangi Black. He was one so young. You know from my age—I am 20 years or maybe a bit less his senior—I just think of a young leader who was obviously so capable and who provided so much. That is such a loss and it is so mysterious—the way we lose these fantastic people. What that is for Ngāti Pūkenga I can never know but I just wanted to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge Ngāti Pūkenga for their concern about clause 103 because I have gone into this pretty deeply with them and I am not satisfied that we have finished. It is really good to hear other members of the Māori Affairs Committee acknowledge that this was the issue brought to them by Ngāti Pūkenga and say that we should consider a review. I just want to go back over some of the aspects of what happened. I do not want to be mean but I found the briefing from the officials very inadequate. We do not know a whole lot of things because we were not told. We asked for a briefing because we really wanted to understand. When tangata whenua bring such a serious issue before the committee we really want to understand the historical meaning and implications and the precedent issues and we got nothing. We got no information and I felt that hampered us in making good decisions. I also want to thank the Minister because I went to the Minister about this—I went to Chris Finlayson. We had a meeting. He is always accessible which is a great thing in a Treaty Minister. I asked him why this is here and I have it in writing from him that there is no legal or policy reason for the clause that allows charitable trusts to have an option on Crown land before it is offered to iwi under the RFR. There is no legal or policy reason and I have that in writing. I also had a good discussion with the Minister about it. He said we could not change it but he said that there is no legal or policy reason. I am emphasising that because we cannot sit in this House and pass law that has clauses in it with no legal or policy reason. It is not right and it is not good enough for us to say that precedent—because bad things have been allowed to happen in this past because this has not been properly examined therefore we will continue to do that. This is why I think a review is the very least of what we should do because if there is an issue that has got no legal or policy reason—and tangata whenua in other settlements may not have been aware of this. I have never heard it talked about until Pūkenga brought it to us so people are not aware of it. When I have talked to other tangata whenua around the motu they did not know about it because a lot of us are not experts in the minutiae of the law and in the interpretation of those minutiae. So I think it is really important that we do have that discussion. It is good to see the Minister back in the House because I just want to thank him for—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Oh I heard you were speaking so I came back in. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Great. I want to thank him for being accessible on the issue. It is really important because we need to have the conversation. I appreciate that historically over the last 22 or more years when precedent is set and it is in all settlements because the clause was just there even though there is no legal or policy reason we need to seriously consider what we do about that. I appreciate that the committee felt that it could not change the specific clause and Ngāti Pukenga themselves are not trying to delay the settlement. They had no desire to delay the settlement by a lengthy negotiation on this clause but they brought it to our attention for a very good reason and that very good reason is that if there is no legal or policy reason for this what do we do? I think review is one thing. I am interested in putting up if Pūkenga wishes me to a Supplementary Order Paper on this in the Committee stage because Pūkenga did bring it in good faith. It is a very good-faith argument that they have made and as Dr Shane Reti the previous speaker pointed out they have investigated the issues behind this. I think that there is a real need for us to take this very very seriously. I mean I am not a lawyer or an expert in these matters but with all the settlements that have happened in the past I still think that there is a matter of natural justice that can be addressed by reviewing this clause and thinking about whether we know how often it has ever been triggered—which we do not—what should be done about it and whether we could do some sort of Māori purposes bill that actually removed it in terms of retrospectivity. I am not a lawyer but I think we should consider these issues and I think we should really consider the issue of justice at all times particularly around Treaty settlements because there is not relativity now and many issues of precedent are worth considering. I think that at the very least we need a body of academia to examine some of these anomalies that are in these settlements and the fact that there is no relativity—you know it is very different. Even in the matter of money what RFR meant 22 years ago and what market price was—some iwi got to buy their land or had opportunities to buy land back at market price 22 years ago. It is a totally different market price now so things are not the same. There are not some kinds of absolutely consistent issues where you can read settlements and say: Yep we can't change anything because it's always been done this way." It is hugely diverse and I think we need a lot more research and a lot more documentation so that we can understand whether there are more anomalies. What this brought up for me when Ngāti Pūkenga came to us was to ask what else there is. What are we also not examining? What assumptions are we making about things because they are precedents? Is it not time to not only review the right of first refusal but review the whole thing and actually ask ourselves some really hard questions? The current traditions around settlement law—are they all just? Are they exercising the best-possible approach that the Crown could possibly take? Maybe they are but I do not think we have examined those lately and I think we need help. It is not something we can do in 5 minutes in the select committee. I mean it is something where the select committee would really appreciate knowing more on these issues and we need to think about them. Obviously I am not going to be in this House after September but I am really passionate that we do the very very best we can because the people who bring to us their blood their sweat and their tears—and I mean all of those things—deserve to know that we really know what we are doing and that we are not just following on from what we have always done. I know that the Minister is very serious about doing the best-possible job and I know that the select committee is. But I think we need to re-examine some of these issues—including RFR—and recognise that there is not relativity in settlements and ask what we are doing actually here and how we can make it better. I just want to thank Ngāti Pūkenga as well as everyone else because I think the fact that to my knowledge they are the only people who have highlighted this in recent times takes nothing away from the significance of it nor from their right to have it acknowledged. I would really like to see us examine this deeply including—if that is their desire—having a Supplementary Order Paper on it. But like everyone else I am not here to say that this settlement should not proceed. I think this settlement is long overdue. I would just like to acknowledge as somebody who lives in the rohe of Ngāti Pūkenga ki Manaia their extraordinary history of both good faith and resistance their extraordinary effort through this settlement and their ability to work with others and what that means. So notwithstanding this RFR issue—which I intend to pursue whatever happens in my life next—I want to thank them for bringing it to us and I thank the Māori Affairs Committee for its consideration and concern that we review this. I look forward to the third reading. I look forward to the day of justice for Ngāti Pūkenga and may it be fully a day of justice. Kia ora koutou katoa."