Mapp Wayne: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21858] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I want to pick up on some points that have been made by my colleague. 
I have to say generally that the preamble in this instance is relatively restrained. Some preambles have constituted essentially something of a rewriting of history. In this particular instance the preamble sets out to a large extent the oral traditions in relation to boundaries the places where the Nga Rauru Kitahi live and have lived and their relationship with those places. Those are of course quite legitimate things to put into a preamble. That is the first thing a preamble should establish: the relationships of the claimants with the place. That is a legitimate and reasonable thing to put into a preamble. 
The second thing a preamble must state is the nature of the breach that has caused the need for a settlement. By definition some breach of property rights some injustice must have occurred before a settlement takes place. National of course initiated the whole process of the Taranaki settlements of which this is one some years ago. So we acknowledge that breaches did occur. 
I am somewhat concerned however about the acknowledgments set out in recital (15) of the preamble in particular. I raised this concern last night in the second reading debate. My concern is that this paragraph presents in essence a one-sided view of history in which the Crown is completely wrong and the claimants are completely right. I do not believe that that is an accurate description of what occurred in 1860. It is not accurate to state: “the Waitara purchase and the wars that followed constituted an injustice and were therefore in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi …”. It is certainly true that those events did involve some injustices. That part is not in dispute. But to say without qualification that the totality of the events constituted an injustice misdescribes the historical record. 
The causes of the wars were multiple. Misunderstandings occurred. There were different views as to the extent and scope of the sovereign power. That is not I would have thought really in contest. Yet the way the preamble and particularly recital (15) is written gives no sense of the nuance of history. I guess that is the problem. 
When we put these things into the legislation we would not have needed much more to be done to give at least some sense of nuance in recital (15). That would have been a more honest approach. 
It is noteworthy—and I refer to this specifically because I know that Mr Pita Paraone will do so—that the leader of New Zealand First has called for a more honest examination of the nation’s history in both pre-European and post-European times. Frankly I think he has a point there. I believe that a preamble written in the way this is written simply does not acknowledge any of the nuances. It would have taken only an additional paragraph or paragraphs to have addressed that effectively in a way that provided a sense of weighing the reality of the history. It would have been more accurate to say that the Crown created injustices through the way it acted. It is not accurate to say that the Crown’s seeking to impose sovereignty through the Taranaki region—because this is effectively how it now reads—was of itself wrong. To say simply that the Waitara purchase and the wars that followed constituted an injustice does not adequately or properly recognise the events that actually took place back in the 1860s. That issue needs to be more fully considered in future settlements—a more dispassionate approach to New Zealand’s history that recognises the broader context in which these events actually took place. 
 That is probably my major concern with the way it is written. 
Of course it raises a much broader issue. I have taken a particular quibble if you will with recital (15) but the issue is much deeper. As this nation goes forward it cannot be realistic or indeed be of good grounding to say that everything that occurred in the 1860s was the fault of the Crown that the Crown was entirely in error that Maori were in every single case the aggrieved parties or that the war was simply an act of Crown aggression and that was all there was to it and that the Maori were simply the hapless aggrieved partner going about and minding their own business when suddenly they were attacked by this overwhelming Crown force. In reality wars have multiple reasons. Was it actually reasonable for Maori to be raising armies in a country governed by the Crown and where there was a single sovereignty? Is that the way we would really expect a modern nation State to exist? Is that a proper analysis of our history? 
I think that in reality the fact that the wars occurred bespeaks of itself Maori having difficulty coming to terms with the reality of sovereignty and the fact that they had actually lost the power to raise armies and to have whole regiments of troops and the like to resist Crown sovereignty. Certainly there were disputes—I am not doubting that—and certainly there were injustices but I query whether war was the right answer because it then precipitated war on the other side. So I think that the way these settlements are being written does not do justice to the events themselves. 
I might contrast it to the Ngai Tahu settlement. In the Ngai Tahu case there was absolutely no doubt that the Crown had breached a contract. It simply had not set aside the 10 percent that it was duty-bound to under the land purchase contract. There was a complete failure on the part of the Crown. We can say in the case of Ngai Tahu that Ngai Tahu were in essence suing on a breach of contract which is a self-evident fact. 
Wars that are in some respects in the nature of a civil war have much more complex origins. They also have a sense of misunderstandings about what had occurred in 1840 through the treaty. I think our history needs to be honest enough to recognise that complexity but I do not believe that this preamble does so. That is not to doubt that there were injustices for which there ought to be compensation but when we are passing legislation—because that is what we are doing today; writing it into the law of the land—we do need to be a little more honest with what actually happened because otherwise we do not have a solid foundation on which to advance forward as a nation. 
Surely that is what the whole point of these settlements are—to advance forward as a nation; the peoples of this nation going forward. We cannot do that with a revisionist approach towards history. We suggest to the Crown negotiators and to Ministers—irrespective of which Government they are in—that a more honest approach needs to be taken to truly advance forward and to close this chapter of our history.