Horan Brendan: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Horan Brendan: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5460. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
BRENDAN HORAN (NZ First) 
: 
 Ko Pirongia te maunga ko Waipa te awa ko Ngati Hikairo te hapu ko Purekereke te marae. Tena koutou nga rangatira no Waitaha. Nga mihi tonu ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa nui o te ra tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
[ 
Pirongia is the mountain Waipa is the river Ngati Hikairo is the subtribe and Purekereke is the courtyard. Greetings to you the esteemed ones from Waitaha. I particularly acknowledge you collectively on this great matter of the day. Acknowledgments to you and to us all. 
] 
I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the first reading of the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill. Waitaha as we have heard are an ancient tribe with an amazing lineage of love knowledge and spirituality. However their more recent history from the 1860s although unique also shares similarities with other iwi throughout New Zealand who have been dispossessed of their mana through the unlawful confiscation of their lands and I must say what rich and fertile land that is. If we just look at the total amount of exports from kiwifruit in Te Puke it was 41 percent of New Zealand’s crop for 2011. From Te Puke alone that equated to $430 million. So you see that this is obviously not about justice but it is about providing a future. I want to say hello to the friends I have in the gallery those of you there from Maketu those of you there from Te Puke. There are a couple of rogues up there I have to wake up really early to beat to my whitebait possie on the Kaituna but never mind. 
But it is not easy to get here. It has been a very long journey and there are hardships in getting here. Everybody here pays their own way so I would like to acknowledge everybody in the gallery. Kia ora. I would also give mention to two men and you know they will be embarrassed by this because there are others in their team. But I would like to mention Tame McCausland and Maru Tapsell. These gentlemen were also there assisting Ngati Makino to their settlement with their claim. That has also helped expedite the process here with Waitaha. 
As I said earlier this claim is not about justice but about now a future. One of the key ingredients I think of Maori is that Maori know our past. Because we know our past when we look to the future it is not next year it is not the year after that but we can set long-term short-term and mid-term goals. Let us look 200 years to the future to future generations. I would like to thank Waitaha for their generosity of spirit in their settlement. 
I would reiterate what the Hon Tau Henare said in that New Zealand needs to see this. These claims are an opportunity for New Zealand to come together to understand Maori’s special connection with water with our wairua and with our land but also that within each tribe’s history is an amazing story. There is a tapestry—betrayal hardship great courage and a great journey. I have mentioned before that if this was happening in the United States of America there would be TV crews everywhere. They would be outside there. Movie moguls would be lined up outside the door waiting to sign up rights for the movies—of course that can still happen. But I would set a challenge out to the media of New Zealand and to those watching on their computers and on television at the moment to learn these histories because it is part of us. It is what makes us unique as New Zealanders. It is what binds us that synergy and it makes us special. We need to celebrate our history. 
I would like to say to those watching because I have received lots of letters—you know you get the redneck letters that say Maori are getting this and Maori are getting that. Well let me tell you that Maori are not getting billions of dollars. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
BRENDAN HORAN 
: Sorry. The Hon Mr Finlayson would be able to give us the figure but I believe that the total amount of all claims to date in New Zealand’s history is only just touching $1 billion. That pales in significance with the South Canterbury Finance bailout the sale of assets and so and so forth. 
But as I said we look forward to the future of Waitaha. We look forward to the growth and renaissance. There are still a few issues to be settled and they will be seen in the select committee process. I refer to the several hapu who were included in the beginning in the agreement in principle but are not in the final bill. I know that we would like to see those several hapu included and that can be done through the select committee process. So I wish Waitaha luck through the next stages—only a small way to go. On behalf of New Zealand First and my colleagues on the Maori Affairs Committee we will do our best to expedite the rest of this journey. Kia ora. Thank you. 
Hone Harawira 
: Kia ora.