Potaka TamaTAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Ko wai anō ko wai anō? Ko te ninihi nui o te moana ko Te Parata nui o te moana ko te Paikea nui o te moana. Ko wai anō ngā uri o te waka Te Arawa? Repanga a Ngātoro ki tai Hauraki ki uta ki te whai ao ki te ao mārama. Haumi e hui e tāiki e.Kei a koutou te rangatira Joe Hita Maitai mā ngā rangatira o Ngāti Hei ki Wharekaho koutou ngā māreikura me ngā whatukura kua rauemi mai kua rarau mai ki tēnei Whare Miere te ana o ngā raiona me ngā taika me ngā puma o tēnei whenua tēnā koutou.Tēnā koutou e kawe nei i ngā moemoeā a ō koutou mātua tūpuna me ngā whakatinanatanga o ērā moemoeā ki roto i ā koutou taiohi rangatahi rangatakapū.Kei taku minita Anaru Paku tēnā koe i ō mahi rangatira nei e mihi ana ki a koe.Katoa rātou kua nunumi atu haere atu rā. Hoki mai nei ki a tātau.[Who are they? Who are they? The vastness of the ocean the great denizen of the sea the great whale of the ocean. Who are the descendants of Te Arawa? Repanga Ngātoro at sea and Hauraki inland in the emerging world the world of light. It coalesces. It assembles. It is bound.To you the leader Joe Peter Matai and others the leaders of Ngāti Hei ki Wharekaho; you also the matriarchs and patriarchs have assembled here to have come here to this Beehive to the lair of the lions and the tigers and the pumas of this land. Greetings.Greetings to you who carry the aspirations of your forebears and the realisation of those dreams in your youth your young people your adolescents.To my Minister Andrew Little thank you for your noble work. I acknowledge you.Those who have passed on rest in peace. I return now to us.]Ngāti Hei ki Wharekaho is what we often refer to as Ngāti Hei a well-known tribe of Hauraki being a member of the Pare Hauraki collective and will receive redress through the Pare Hauraki collective redress arrangements as well as this specific Ngāti Hei arrangement. The iwi marae at Whitianga Te Rā Matiti stands as a lighthouse for tribal identity. E mihi ana ki a koutou te ahi kā. [The marae of the iwi Whitianga Te Rā Mātiti stands as a lighthouse for tribal identity. I acknowledge you the home people that keep the home fires burning.]Treaty settlements like this one that were launched and set about by the great elders of the National Party Jim Bolger Doug Graham Kereama Rātima and Bill Birch—Wīremu Birch—have been carried on by successive Governments and genuinely assisted in restoring wairua through acknowledgments and apologies through cultural redress and usually some modest commercial redress that sometimes includes land and buildings and in some places just pūtea just the cash. And like your relatives on the other side of Tīkapa Moana Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki the Ngāti Hei nation are resilient emergent and aspirational. In fact I wanted to take a moment just to comment on the comments of my former boss Hemi Paraone your whanaunga over there Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki who always would refer to Matua Joe as an absolute icon of Hauraki identity. And in that little Switzerland that Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki sometimes is—Tāmaki-makau-rau Tainui Hauraki and everything else—he always would pay that homage and that respect to the mahi that Matua Joe and others of Ngāti Hei have done to retain their identity to drive their identity and ultimately to restore and regenerate their identity.Ahakoa iti rearea teitei kahikatea [Despite the diminutive size of the rearea bird it can reach the top of the kahikatea tree.] Whilst the rearea is small it can overcome the tallest kahikatea in the great forest of Tāne Mahuta. And your negotiators along with other iwi leaders not only those that are on the paepae but also those in the kāuta have brought this here to the Whare Mīere. So I acknowledge all those rangatira and ringawera [leaders and kitchen staff] of the iwi. Mā mua ka kitea a muri; mā muri ka ora a mua. [Through the formalities the dining staff are seen; because of the dining staff the formalities go well.]Ngāti Hei—descendants of tangata whenua Te Hekenga-a-rangi and Hapū-oneone as well as the great navigators and sentinels of various waka like Arawa and Kupe's Matahourua. The deed of settlement outlines and sets out some kōrero around the eponymous ancestor Hei son of Atuamatua brother of Houmaitawhiti and father of Waitaha and bound to the land and seas of Toi te Huatahi ki te Waitematā huri atu a Tīkapa Moana ki roto the Hauraki Gulf to Waitematā and the food basket of Tīkapa Moana. The dominions that the Ngāti Hei people have are indeed mercurial—mercurial Mr Simpson—and spread north and south and are captured in various names: Te Ō ā Hei or Hahei Te Whanganui a Hei Mercury Bay and Ngā Tokotoru a Hei out there by Aotea. E mihi ana ki a koutou. The area of interest of your iwi located on the eastern seaboard of the Coromandel Peninsula is in the works and the writings of my wife's great-grandfather Pei Te Hurinui Jones who has links to you all. Moehau. He always refers to Coromandel Peninsula as Moehau but Te Tara o te Ika a Māui through Onemana and Te Whangapoua and centred around Tairua and Mautohe known to most of us as Cathedral Cove—and those citadels of Ngāti Hei include Repanga or Cuvier Island home of various tasty fish and shark Moehau Ahuahu Motutere Tahanga and ngā Ruamāhua islands.The Ngāti Hei massif also refers us back to our Tahitian ancestors with places like Hitiā o te Rā or Whitianga as we refer to it here in New Zealand and Taputapuatea—what a beautiful place in Tahiti and also in Coromandel. I'm sure many of the members here today—actually some of our whanaunga members across the benches—have also been to that place both here in Aotearoa and also in Tahiti. The bill is one that the National Party supports to progress to the first reading. Like many whānau hapū and iwi Ngāti Hei were entrepreneurial peoples in the early 1800s being involved like other iwi in the timber trade with foresters albeit with some unconscionable arrangements along the way—reminds me of a few iwi through the central North Island e taku tuakana Shanan. [my senior Shanan.]One of the more difficult experiences Ngāti Hei went through was the purchase of Ahuahu—Mercury Island; what an outstanding place—by the Crown from other iwi. There is no evidence that Ngāti Hei were either consulted or paid for their interest in this breathtaking island and then of course the Crown entered into land transactions called purchases for over 80000 acres of Moehau paradise. The bill gives effects to some elements of the Ngāti Hei deed of settlement and I mihi to those former Ministers for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Doug Graham and Christopher Finlayson who represented the Crown in those early high-level negotiations with Ngāti Hei. But it also reflects the acknowledgment and apology made in that deed and gives effect to some of the redress outlined in that deed. I want to thank and acknowledge our Minister the Hon Andrew Little Anaru Paku and various officials for this important step in the redress process—Mike Dreaver Rick Barker officials from the Department of Conservation Land Information New Zealand and other agencies who have represented the Crown. I mihi to them and hope for further innovation in future settlements as well.This package set out in the bill is something that the National Party absolutely applauds and supports for further consideration. The acknowledgments record that the Crown failed to take adequate steps to protect the interests of Ngāti Hei but it sets out the industrial activities—those extractive processes over the Moehau Peninsula te Tara o te Ika; things like gold-mining gum digging flax milling timber harvesting—all those extractive processes that have delivered very little upside for Ngāti Hei over time and have been very distressing. Those beautiful surrounds of Moehau Whitianga and elsewhere is something that—although there's a few roads that we need to fix up along the way collectively there Mr Simpson—Hon Scott Simpson: Hear hear!TAMA POTAKA: Hear hear! It's something that we look forward to restoring. By the end of the 20th century left virtually landless like many other iwi throughout the motu Ngāti Hei had been marginalised with the loss of resources poor educational achievement socio-economic deprivation and all those other pretty difficult statistics that you're dealing with.The apology for the Treaty breaches and prejudice to Ngāti Hei particularly given the impacts of Crown actions and omissions on the wellbeing of Ngāti Hei is something that we will continue to canvass as we go through the legislative readings. The deed of settlement which was initialled on 31 May 2017 and then ratified later in August that year illustrates the progress that your whānau your hapū and your iwi have made in order to seal the deal but also to get to go. It's like going around in Monopoly Go back to 'Go' and collect $200" but in this case a little bit more commercial redress.Now you have many uri and descendants and I can't believe that Census 2018 only records 600 because I know there are more out there somewhere. Ahakoa he iti he iti māpihi pounamu. [Even though it appears small it is of great value.] The census noted that only 44 percent of the iwi own their own home and 27 percent of iwi members earn more than $50000 per annum. Hopefully—hopefully—this redress set out in the bill and the pending legislation will give you a little bit of ballast and a little bit of kaha to carry out and improve those demographics and improve those statistics.The kaupapa of Ngāti Hei is set out on your website: "From our tūpuna we have inherited our moana whenua and cultural taonga. We will protect and enhance them to build a bright future for Ngāti Hei." E mihi ana—e mihi ana ki a koutou. Those various aspects of the bill include cultural redress—culturally significant sites being returned places like Purangi Tapu Point and Rangihau; revitalisation funds for cultural purposes—financial redress of $8.5 million with commercial redress enabling the right to purchase part of Whenuakite—actually I remember some kiwi coming over from Whenuakite Station to Motutapu. Had to give them a bit of aroha a bit of love all the way from Whenuakite right into the middle of Tīkapa Moana. And of course there is the separation of negotiations in the future in relation to Tīkapa Moana and Te Tai Tamāhine / Te Tai Tamawahine. It is through these types of historic "herstoric" and heroic Treaty settlement arrangements that we can help recognise the decades of loss and suffering regenerate iwi particularly rural economies like that in Ngāti Hei and tautoko Ngāti Hei to realise your holistic aspirations with a carefully nurtured relationship reset with the Crown.Ki a koutou o Ngāti Hei whāia te iti kahurangi. E kore rawa koutou e tuohu ki tēnei maunga teitei ākuanei ka tau atu ki te tihi o tēnei maunga. Haere tonu kawea te mānuka takoto ki tōna ake takotoranga ki tōna āketanga. E mihi ana ki a koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou e mihi ana ki a koutou.[To those of you of Ngāti Hei pursue worthy endeavours. You will never bow to this lofty mountain; soon you will reach the summit of this peak. Go on take up the challenge lying before you to its destination to its enduring conclusion. I acknowledge you. Thanks and greetings to you; I acknowledge you.]"