Hipango HareteHARETE HIPANGO (National): E Te Māngai tēnā koe e te kui. E tū ana au ki te karanga mō te pānuitanga tuatahi o tēnei pire Te Pire Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-ā-Rua Claims Settlement Bill. E mihi ana au ki a koutou ngā manuhiri e huihui mai nei i tēnei wā ngā uri o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-ā-Rua.Ko Harete Hipango taku ingoa. Ko au he mokopuna a Hori Hipango. Ko au he uri nō Whanganui.[Madam Speaker greetings. I stand to speak for the first reading of this bill the Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-ā-Rua Claims Settlement Bill. Greetings to you our visitors who have gathered here at this time the descendants of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-ā-Rua.My name is Harete Hipango. I am descended from Hori Hipango. I am a descendant from Whanganui.]In acknowledging our manuhiri who have travelled from afar and arrived here after generations of journeying I follow my colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri uri of Ngāti Kahungunu. I also acknowledge in the House manuhiri and uri of Ngāti Kahungunu; however former members of Parliament the Hon Rick Barker and I believe Marama Fox is back in the Whare. Tēnā koe tēnā kōrua. I turn to importantly the bill. As I've referenced this has been a journey of generations for people of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. And as uri of Whanganui having been on that journey I know that over the passage of time we carry our old people with us. However I was heartened at the mihi whakatau to see our young people tamariki mokopuna and rangatahi because the purpose of this settlement bill is transitioning from the grievance and the injustices of the past and moving forward into the future with hope and prosperity. I'm always cognisant that those of us who have travelled the journeys with these Treaty settlement bills we know the history we know the kōrero we know the whakapapa. However the opportunity to address people gathered in the House is also to those New Zealanders who may be tuning in or are tuned in through the television and technology. So these readings are also about bringing the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand on the passage of this journey as the passage of this bill has entered the House for its first reading; and then will transition to the Māori Affairs Committee which I have the privilege of serving as a member of; then back into the House for the second reading possibly with some amendments some adjustments after hearing submissions from those interested parties to the bill; and then to transition to the third reading and into law. So this is an opportunity that I seize to bring New Zealanders on this journey because many are ignorant of the facts of the journey of where our people have come from to the point that we are arriving at today.On that note and in the limited time that we have—10 minutes to address the House—the key message as my colleagues have addressed and spoken is that this is a settlement bill to attempt to redress the wrongs the injustices the grievances and the mamae from the past. My colleague Joseph Mooney who spoke as a member of the National Party as I do traversed some of the history which is going to be encapsulated and inscribed written into the bill. There was a particular poignant moment when a koroheke spoke at the mihi whakatau as your last speaker today talking about the e koro being of his generation and era and the imposition of colonisation not making enough room and space for our tikanga for our way of living. And e koro I sat there quietly because your story is a story that my father shared with me. And my father in his childhood his parents made the decision and saw fit at that time in the 1940s and 1950s that for my father—and then if followed through the generations thereafter for us to not only survive but to succeed we had to assimilate into Te Ao Pākehā. And koro I acknowledge thank you the privilege of listening to your story. It's a shared story for many of us that many New Zealanders do not know and have not lived and do not carry that burden or the mamae from. The purpose of this settlement bill is to address some of those wrongs to remedy and to make better moving forward.By way of background part of the journey—and only part of the last 30 years of entering into this process to arrive here today at this time for the first reading—started I understand 30 years ago in terms of this part of the legal journey. Moving from Te Ao Māori to tikanga ngā ture Māori into this dimension of acknowledging and the passage of writing things from past wrongs into law. So I understand that in November 2012 the Crown recognised the mandate of the trust to represent Ngāti Kahungunu with terms of negotiation signed in June 2013. And then on 7 May 2016 the agreement in principle was signed. In November 2016 the members of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-ā-Rua ratified the post-settlement governance entity the settlement trust and then the trust was formally established in March 2017. On 22 March 2018 the settlement trust with the Crown initialled a deed of settlement that was ratified in November 2018 and then the deed of settlement was signed—and I've misplaced the time but the people know this. It was signed on 29 October 2021. So that's just a snippet of the passage that it's taken to arrive at this point today.The Māori Affairs Committee will have the duty and responsibility to prudently go through—but importantly to listen to—the submissions from the people of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and other interested parties about the detail of the letter of the proposed law in this bill. It will be our responsibility and obligation to listen to the submissions but also to turn our minds and our lens as to whether there are parts of the bill that may need to be improved.The bill is being passed unanimously in this first reading through to select committee. At that stage as I indicated there may be some amendments. It's been touched on in the House by one speaker as I recollect that there had been some grievance by hapū who took their concern to the Waitangi Tribunal. Findings with recommendations have been made and then there were High Court proceedings initiated which the select committee will with interest await to see whether there is a determination or judgment during the time that we preside and listen and scrutinise the bill. My point is that the Crown having committed to signing the deed of settlement is acknowledging the injustices the grievances and the wrongs from the past but it is important as we move forward into the future to ensure that there are no further injustices that are created or if they are that must be remedied. On that note I complete my kōrero by saying it is a privilege always to speak to Treaty settlement bills but today for me as uri of Whanganui and tūpuna Tamatea Pōkai Whenua—the marae I come from is Pūtiki Wharanui o Tamatea Pōkai Whenua.On that note I commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.