Henare Tau: Central North Island Forests Land Collective  Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Henare Tau: Central North Island Forests Land Collective  Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:18949. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I start by congratulating first the claimants themselves then the Government and then our little Maori Affairs Committee on a job reasonably well done. I will take a couple of minutes to talk specifically about what I think comes out of the Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Bill. I will not talk specifically about what is in it because I think although much is made of the allocation model the tikanga-based resolution process and although it sounds really good in a fantasy world there are still people outside of that even though we have a tikanga-based resolution process who think the deal is not up to scratch. I suppose it tells us that no matter what system we have there will always be somebody outside the process who might think the deal is not right.  
One of the more interesting facts I found out about this bill during the select process was the result of a question I asked one of the submitters. It was about mana whenua it was about property rights—it went down that avenue. I asked that person who will remain anonymous about the land shares that that person and that person’s family had had for years and years. The answer to the question was that they had gone back even further to communal ownership. I thought OK I can cop that. I accept that that is a line of thinking that goes pretty well with the settlement. But I got to thinking about who compensates the person who had the individual shares. At the establishment of the Native Land Court communally owned land was individualised but now that we are going back to a point in time before the individualisation of land who compensates those people who have just been left out vis-à-vis the individual shareholders in the land? So whatever we do out of this we will create I think another set of grievances more than with any other settlement I have seen.  
I am not saying this is a bad settlement and a bad bill. I am saying that out of this we have created most probably if people are clued up—and I am sure they are—a situation where in 5 or 10 years’ time they will trot back in and say they have been hard-done-by and can we please sort it out because we were the ones who made the grievance and gave them the ammunition to have a go at us. National will support this bill going through and I just wanted to raise that issue because I do think it is a huge issue. 
I will read out a little paragraph on the select committee’s report on the bill: “Ten submitters implicitly or explicitly disputed the mandate of Te Runanga o Ngati Manawa to agree to the inclusion of their claims in the settlement bill. The key concern underpinning all these submissions was that Ngati Manawa should have done better out of the settlement given their strong mana whenua interests in the Kaingaroa. Some of the submitters also asserted that Ngati Moewhare … had been excluded from the settlement negotiations or that Ngati Manawa representatives had not had a significant role in” the central North Island negotiations. 
I want to bring something up at this stage and you can rule me out of order if you want to Madam Assistant Speaker. This process raises the issue when we are dealing with Treaty negotiations and Treaty settlements in the House that it does not matter how many submitters the select committee gets and it does not matter how many are opposed and in favour of the settlement the select committee has no jurisdiction to change the settlement. In fact the House itself does not have any jurisdiction whatsoever to change the settlement. So with all due respect to the mana of the House this process is a bit of a farce. It is a bit of a farce in terms of when we expect the community to come to us and say: “Excuse me these are my feelings on this legislation.” But we cannot change it so what is the point? Is the point itself just giving the community the opportunity to say hello and air its grievances and to then go away and nothing happens? I think that is a Clayton’s way of dealing with issues.  
It might make them feel nice that they fronted up to the select committee and had their say but nothing comes of it. I was not astounded but gobsmacked that there was a Speaker’s ruling on this matter that pertained even to an amendment to Treaty legislation. I can certainly understand why. I am not quibbling and arguing against it; I am just pointing out the fact that when we are dealing with these issues it seems a bit on the nose that we call for submissions that we spend money going up the line and hiring out a hall at the hotel and that we call hundreds of people together so that parliamentarians can listen to their submissions only to find out that we cannot do anything about it. 
I just wanted to raise that issue. Maybe in the future a select committee or even the House can look at this issue in a bipartisan manner. How do we deal with the issue of submitters coming to the House and asking us to change something because of the way they feel about it? Instead of saying no maybe in the future there will be some way of saying that we will look at it and see whether we can change it. That is one of the main points I want to make in respect of the Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Bill.  
The last point is that I think the people who have worked on this bill have come up with a way of dealing with issues that is particular and peculiar to them. So I commend those who have been involved; there are too many to name. I think this is a watershed time in terms of Treaty settlements and hopefully some other people can look at how the process has been achieved and at the road we have gone down so they can follow the lead of those involved in the bill. But we will not hold up the show too much longer. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. 
Bill read a second time.