Turei Metiria: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Turei Metiria: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19331] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 He mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa Ngati Awa. 
[ 
A fond greeting to all of you Ngati Awa. 
] 
The direct negotiations or deals for Ngati Awa are just about over. With the passing of this bill Ngati Awa will complete their settlement and with the establishment of the runanga yesterday will be able to pursue their interests independently without any further interference from the Government. 
The Greens understand that there was little negotiation with the Crown over the amount of financial compensation eventually provided for in the settlement. Ngati Awa presented its views and the Crown came back with its own non-negotiable quantum. It is worth noting for the nation as a whole that Ngati Awa are owed about 68000 hectares of land a situation arising from the historical confiscations and wrongful takings of the past. Under this settlement Ngati Awa will be returned only about 64 hectares of that 68000 hectares still owed. That is less than 0.1 percent of what was taken from them. All New Zealanders should be filled with immense gratitude at the considerable generosity of Ngati Awa in that respect. 
For that the Greens sincerely congratulate Ngati Awa. Ngati Awa have been in negotiations with various Governments of various flavours since 1980. It is a settlement that has been 25 years in the making with 10 of those years spent in the direct negotiations process. On reflection the constant calls by some political factions on both sides of this House that the settlement process should be sped up and capped is entirely bizarre. Of course it should not take an iwi 25 years to negotiate a settlement especially one that does not return much more than the smallest possible fraction of the massive quantity of property and taonga that was illegally taken. Of course restitution to iwi for the loss of life hardship and injustice suffered by them at the hands of the State should occur swiftly without delay and without undue cost to them the aggrieved party. Perhaps if the negotiations process was a just process whereby iwi and hapu determined and actively agreed to the restitution process it would never have taken 25 years for Ngati Awa to achieve their compensation. 
We have to remember that it is the Government’s unilateral process that holds up settlements. It is the agonising pauperising of the iwi whose funding is contestable and too hard fought for and who have to borrow against their meagre restitution that holds up settlements. It is the unreasonable demands of the Office of Treaty Settlements which puts its policies before the interests of iwi that hold up the settlement process. On no account should any iwi or hapu be undermined by let alone held responsible for the failure of the direct negotiations process to operate swiftly and effectively. That responsibility lies directly within the sphere of the successive Labour and National Governments that devised it. 
I will also talk very briefly about independence. Yesterday Mr Prebble criticised the runanga structure for not fitting his view of having appropriate trust accountability. He is entitled to his view but it is a shame he holds it because he is wrong. He and others in this House forget that this restitution—the lands rights properties and money that will be returned to Ngati Awa—belongs to them collectively as their collective property. Frankly they can do with it what they want. They do not owe anyone but each other. They are not accountable to the country or the public—only to themselves and their mokopuna. Their lands and taonga were stripped off them in the name of New Zealand as a whole. Restitution has now been made on behalf of New Zealand as a whole. Any interest by New Zealanders in Ngati Awa’s financial affairs now ends. We now owe it to Ngati Awa to leave them alone to pursue their interests and needs. 
The Greens are highly critical of the settlement process—that will come as no surprise to anyone—when iwi have no authority over it. We understand that the necessary boundaries in a negotiation should be jointly negotiated if they are to be fair but in the settlement process that has simply not been the case. The Government has set its policy with a “take it or leave it” approach. In our view it is not fair negotiation but unmanaged bullying. The principles of fairness and justice that supposedly guide the settlement process are not a true reflection of it. It is a political process in which the Crown sets the framework and Maori are continually expected to compromise. 
We are very pleased that Ngati Awa have as part of their settlement a number of statutory acknowledgements deeds of recognition protocols place name changes and transferred sites. But the cultural redress package and its protocols and advisory committees is a poor substitute for the recognition of the treaty relationship which in the end is the only means by which true restoration for the breaches of te tiriti can ever be restored. Providing for Ngati Awa to express its views to Ministers on various issues gives very little practical effect to te tiriti and simply waters it down. The breaches of te tiriti involve the stripping from Maori of any real self-determination. Nothing has been done in this country to resolve that and in fact the opposite continues to occur. 
At the first reading of this bill some months ago the House was considering the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. At the same time that we were considering the Ngati Awa legislation and the compensation being offered to Ngati Awa for the unlawful taking of their lands other legislation was proceeding that I signalled would again wrongfully confiscate land within the rohe of Ngati Awa. Politicians on both sides of the House who argue for a time limit on the settlement process or who either directly or indirectly blame iwi or hapu for their struggle in trying to achieve some compensation for the crimes committed against them surely see the absurdity of their position. If they do not want the settlement of grievances to continue they should stop stealing Maori land and thereby creating those exact grievances for the future. It is not exactly rocket science. 
The Greens acknowledge that this settlement is the best that Ngati Awa could have secured under the current settlement policy and we sincerely congratulate Ngati Awa on pursuing that restitution through a demanding and unjust process. We acknowledge that the settlement provides a measure of independence for Ngati Awa and we are very grateful for their tenacity and generosity to our country. The Green Party wishes Ngati Awa the very best for the future.