Chadwick Steve: Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill — Third Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. To all those people up in the gallery I say that I would not call them a crowd. I think they bring much more significance in being with us today. I would probably call them an ope. To the people of Te Arawa Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngati Raukawa I say welcome and thank them for making the journey yet again to share their stories their history and their past with us in the House who are just doing the bidding of drafting legislation and getting it to the House. We share their presence here today. Thank you for being here. 
It is my pleasure to be here. The Hon Parekura Horomia and the Hon Maryan Street are unable to be here today so I have the privilege of being here for the third reading. I am also able to congratulate the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations on bringing the bill to this end today. I think the Minister has embarked on a new approach with Treaty settlements. He is picking up the legacy of Michael Cullen which was left at the end of Labour’s time in Government. But in this case the settlement was begun by the Hon Margaret Wilson very early in Labour’s 9 years in Government. 
This bill is very significant. It is not just another settlement coming before the House. I think this settlement signals a new way of working. Very complex structures have been able to be woven together with the co-governance framework and also some of the conservation and fisheries components have been woven into the legislation to make it a much more enduring and sustainable settlement. Those issues in themselves created quite a challenge for Labour when in Government. My involvement was very contemporary in 2008. I acknowledge Lady Raiha Mahuta. She came to see me when I was a new Minister of Conservation. She was desperate to get this settlement done. She must have known then that her time with us would not be for much longer and she wanted to have the settlement moved. It was a thrill to have the deed of settlement signed in 2008 and then to have the Hon Chris Finlayson pick it up in 2009. It is not bad that we are here in 2010 having the third reading debate. I congratulate not the speed but the knitting together of the complexities of this bill that we are debating here today. 
One of the things I will talk about is the co-governance framework. I think there are some very exciting aspects here yet to be tested as I heard my colleagues mention in the House. We have just had the local body elections so on this journey there will be new councillors on the regional councils and on the local authorities who will not understand co-governance. They have a lot to learn about partnership. They have a lot to learn about listening. They even have a lot to learn about the histories. They need to go back to the storytelling. I say to members in the gallery to tell them the stories so that they can understand the journey because we have a big future ahead of us. I urge those who will manage this going forward to embrace those new councillors because they will not understand the complexity of this legislation. 
The bill also contains iwi environmental management plans. I remember Nanaia Mahuta bringing forward a member’s bill that we felt very strongly about. It was about the importance of having an iwi environmental management plan. It was sad for us because the bill was defeated in this House. If only we had iwi environmental management plans for this settlement today the settlement process would proceed so much more easily. 
There will be regulations about fishing. There is a conservation component that has the status of “conservation management plan” and that is wonderful to see. The Department of Conservation needed to understand the role of kaitiakitanga of the land and of the environment reflected in this statute today. I am sure the department is now learning from this process the ways that will help to strengthen future Treaty settlement processes. We are all guardians of the land and the Department of Conservation is really a guardian of the land for the people and has to play an integral part in the role of trust and having an enduring relationship with iwi to make those things work for the future. So what a pity it is that iwi environmental management plans are not a component of the legislation which they could have been for all regions around the country. 
There is another powerful component of the co-governance framework and that is the protection of species. I heard our Green Party colleague David Clendon mention the loss of biodiversity both along the streams of the Waikato River and in the freshwater fisheries—freshwater eel is endangered as are koura and whitebait. The protection of species is absolutely vital and when we see that aquatic life come back to life the Waikato River Authority will have done its job. I hope we can see that in our time and I am sure we will because those people want to make this legislation work. 
This is a very new approach and I worry a little bit about the aim to try to have the Treaty settlement process come to an end by 2014 because we learn about new components with each Treaty settlement. I am pleased there is a Waikato River clean-up fund. We did not manage to achieve that in our Te Arawa Lakes settlement. We wanted it; we got a quantum. We have more work to do to clean up our lakes—three of them are also part of the tributary into the Waikato River. That was a new learning process and it is reflected in this bill. I think that is very significant. 
What a pleasure it is to be here today. It is sort of the end of a journey. The chair of the Waikato iwi trust Roger Pikia mentioned in his press release today that this journey was begun by a kaumatua Kamariera Heretaunga and 54 others in 1895. That was a bit of a journey was it not? But what a learning process in that in 2010 we are settling a grievance about the degradation that has happened both to the people and to the Maori of the mighty Waikato River. Labour is pleased to be giving our support to this bill today. Thank you.