Brownlee Gerry: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5506] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I begin my comments by acknowledging the presence in the precincts of Parliament of the leaders of Te Arawa and the many people who have over a long number of years kept this claim alive and who have as the Minister the Hon Mark Burton said gone through considerable personal difficulty or without concern for that difficulty have carried on the work that they felt they needed to do. 
The Crown’s role in settling Treaty grievance is somewhat central because the Crown accepts the negative side of all the dealings that might have gone on around any particular set of issues that are being settled. It is right and proper that such settlements are done here in Parliament. I know that Te Arawa have had difficulties with the lakes issue since the early part of the 1900s and quite probably prior to that. But the one thing that a Parliament should do is make sure that when there is a full and final settlement it is just that. It should make sure that those people on whose behalf an issue is being settled are properly represented in the final accepted agreement. Our concern is that that may not be the case here. 
When we first looked at this bill some time back we were given any amount of information that over a period of time proved to be quite spurious. But it did cause us to look at the history of the previous settlement in 1922. What was interesting to me was that arrangements were concluded between a lawyer from Auckland a lawyer from Wellington and the Government represented by Sir Apirana Ngata. Effectively no Te Arawa were involved. It is not surprising then that 80-odd years later we are back here looking at it all again. 
I will separate out a couple of things. We have no objection to the capitalising of the annuity. That is only reasonable; we have no objection to that at all. And we have no problem with the fishing-licence issue. It is appalling that the agreement was not honoured throughout all those years. But we do have a difficulty with the rest of the bill. It is not meant to be a difficulty that conveys ill will. I want to make it clear that it is our view that although this bill will be passed today and that Te Arawa—without our vote—will leave here with our best wishes for the future there will be a need to come back here at another time and we will be prepared to hear that case. 
The number of people who were involved in the mandate on this was extremely low. I asked during the select committee process how many people called themselves Te Arawa and the number I was given was around 40000. So we asked how many people had participated in the mandating exercise and we were told some 8000-odd. How many people went for it—said “Yes do this!”? The figure was less than half that again. That figure is too small and if Te Arawa had not had the exercise done properly by the Office of Treaty Settlements we should have been told. Just as there were clearly a number of people in 1922 who were happy with the arrangements there were many many more who were not. Therefore the legislation was carried imposed and ultimately put in front of us again. 
We have heard stories from the various people who came along to the select committee and said: “This is not us because we’re not part of the trust board structure and various other things—but we are Te Arawa and we do have connections to a particular lake in the set of lakes we are talking about here.” I do not think it is fair that those people are just cast aside. People may say: “Well you don’t know enough about it; you haven’t talked to the right people; you haven’t got yourself into a position where you can make this statement.” But the sad thing is that the history is on my side—the very short history. 
So I want to conclude my remarks by saying to Te Arawa: “Accept the settlement—sure—and take the annuity. Get involved in the organisations that will do good things for the lakes and for this country in effect. That is fine. But accept that we know that the legislation is not perfect we know that it will come back and we know that we will have to do something on behalf of the many—the many—who are not saying yes to this agreement.” I say those words deliberately because it may not be in my time in this House it may not be in a generation’s time in this House but as recent history shows us it will happen. In that event there will be no one who can make a claim that this is full and final—therefore we are unable to vote for it.