Rurawhe Adrian: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRurawhe Adrian: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee[Sitting date: 19 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2469. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): I would like to speak to Part 22 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)—namely the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act 2012—which corrects the legislation by deleting the words “or a Crown body” with reference to right of first refusal land.Before I speak to that I do have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair Minister Lotu-Iiga but I think it is important to have on record the importance of right of first refusal land to settle iwi. This is land that is within the agreed area of interest for that particular iwi. It is Crown land that is owned by the Crown and under the current legislation also by Crown bodies. This removes the words “or a Crown body” because in the deed of settlement it refers just to the Crown. The important thing to note I think is that for the settled iwi this is really important because it gives the opportunity to buy back land that they once owned and is now alienated. I think it is important to recognise that in this discussion on this part of the bill.The question I have—and to quote an interjection from Brett Hudson “Why create law when none is needed?”—is along those lines in support of what he is saying actually and is whether the Government considered asking Ngāti Manuhiri to change the deed of settlement. The second part of the question related to that is whether Ngāti Manuhiri is better off or worse off by this amendment. I think that is a fair question to ask because the nature of these settlements is about giving redress to the iwi that has suffered the breaches and omissions by the Crown in their rohe in their district where they are from. So I think that is an important consideration and a fair question to ask of the Minister because as my colleague across the way there said why create law when none is needed? If it was a simple matter of changing the deed of settlement we would not have to have this within the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4).I think also with reference to right of first refusal land within the settlement Acts there is a variety of time frames in the respective settlement Acts. In this particular case Ngāti Manuhiri has that right for 169 years which is a very long time. Others that have been settled previously to this one have rights of refusal for 50 years and that begs another question around relativity in these settlement Acts. I think it is important also to note that as part of this debate.I think also that the right of first refusal land is a huge opportunity for iwi that have settled to grow the asset they have received as part of their redress. I mention that mainly because it is redress; it is not compensation. It is the opportunity to grow the asset within their tribal areas. These kinds of sentiments are listed within the various settlement Acts—and indeed in this one—and that is why I ask again whether the Minister considered changing the deed of settlement rather than changing the legislation. And if the Government did consider that and decided not to was it because this would then set a precedent which would have to be applied to a number of other settlements and future settlements? I do not know how many Crown—