Tirikatene Rino: Maraeroa A and B Blocks Claims Settlement Bill Maraeroa A and B Blocks Incorporation Bill — Second Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tirikatene Rino: Maraeroa A and B Blocks Claims Settlement Bill Maraeroa A and B Blocks Incorporation Bill — Second Readings 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3711. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Kaiwhakamana. Tena korua e nga minita me nga mema o te Whare tena koutou. Nga uri o Takao a Raukawa Rereahu Maniapoto me nga uri o Tia te tipuna o Tuwharetoa kua haramai nei ki roto i tenei Whare tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Deputy Speaker and to you two Ministers and to members of the House salutations to you collectively. To the descendants of Takao namely of the Raukawa Rereahu Maniapoto tribes and those of Tia the Tuwharetoa ancestor acknowledgments salutations and greetings to you all 
.] 
I am very pleased to rise and speak in the second readings of these two bills the Maraeroa A and B Blocks Claims Settlement Bill and the Maraeroa A and B Blocks Incorporation Bill. Like the chair of the Maori Affairs Committee—and my whanaunga—Tau Henare I do not care to traverse all the details and all the different aspects of the history and elements of the bills and the settlement so I will keep my remarks quite general. I think those aspects have been adequately covered by my colleagues thus far. My comments are really just in relation to what my colleague Mr Clendon touched on—the notions of ownership and other general matters in terms of the history the connection of our people to our whenua and the movement of our people and how those movements and the connections that were made around the motu have brought us to the situation that we are dealing with now with the Maraeroa A and B Blocks. 
As a first-time member of this House I am humbly reminded of the real reason why our people elected their Maori representatives to this House the Whare Paremata. The Maori MPs have traditionally been elected and still are to represent the many take that have been put forward by aggrieved relatives and that is the case right across the motu. I acknowledge the mana of the ancestors of the hapu represented here today whom I mentioned in my mihi at the start. It is easy to forget that Tuwharetoa Raukawa Maniapoto and Rereahu were actual people who had wives children and a following and they practised their own forms of tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake on their whenua. We refer to ourselves by the name of our tupuna like “Oh he’s a Tuwharetoa.” or “She’s from Raukawa.” I would like to acknowledge those tupuna who have gone before those eponymous ancestors who were just ordinary men ordinary folk trying to make the best decisions for themselves and for their kin. 
Thank goodness for whakapapa because if it were not for the work of our oral historians and the early Maori informants and transcribers much more of Aotearoa would have been alienated by today. Much of today’s cultural redress—and this is where I am getting to the elements of this bill—is due to the Pakeha system of ownership with fee simple titles and straight lines on maps. Those things are anathema to Maori but that is the system of land tenure that we have today. They were definitely foreign way back in the 1860s. To Maori the notion of ownership was the old system of micro-management of the estate pre-arranged war pre-arranged marriage and the inevitable pre-arranged hakari at the end of it. Those concepts sit much better in the Maori mind. You know the war is not over until both sides say so. That suggests constant dialogue and that is much more important to Maori than what the Pakeha system of land tenure has done for the history of this country. 
For 150 years the descendants of the original owners of Maraeroa A and B Blocks were excluded from their ancient rights and practices on their whenua because the lands and survey department had taken a wrong creek made a wrong mark gone down the wrong ridge. Those arbitrary actions or those careless— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: On purpose. 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: Well purposely careless actions on a piece of paper. Those moments of carelessness started a 150-year mamae of resentment and grievance. So it is really humbling for me to be able to stand as a Maori member of this House to rectify these actions—or to put in some measure of rectification—through the enactment of these bills and these settlements. 
Another aspect of being Maori is whakapapa. I always like if I am speaking about something to try to draw on a connection something that I can relate to. I am very proud of the Ngati Rarua and Ngati Tama connection that I have through the Poutini Ngai Tahu side down there on the West Coast. While there was all the intra-tribal and hapu fighting that was going on up there between Rereahu Raukawa and Toa Rangatira Ngati Rarua and Ngati Tama sort of ventured down to Te Upoko o Te Ika then hopped over and went down into Te Wai Pounamu. Again it is an example of the movement of people and the conflicts but also the marriages and the peace and the kaitakawaenga that resulted from a lot of that. So I am proud to make that connection to my smidgen of Rarua and Tama whakapapa which goes all the way back up to whanaunga of Rereahu Raukawa and Maniapoto. We all go back to the  
Tainui 
 waka. It is great to be able to sort of claim some connection to these people and these bills and this rectification of their settlement through these bills. 
I want to make a final remark. We talk about a lot of these settlements having elements of giving or gifting back lands that were taken and certain covenants. I want to make sure that Maori are able to exercise full mana motuhake over their lands that are returned to them if that is their wish. I know there are a lot of covenants and restrictions these days. I am a South Island landless native. We were landless in the south and we were given wastelands way way down at the bottom of nowhere where no one ever ventured as compensation as an economic base. So yes I am a present-day descendant of the original owners—much like the descendants of the original owners of the Maraeroa A and B Blocks—of those lands but in practical terms we cannot do anything with those lands because there are restrictions that are placed all over them. That is one area that I hope to rectify during my tenure in this august House. 
That is really all I would like to say. I am keeping my remarks general. But I mihi to the whanau of the original owners of the Maraeroa A and B Blocks. I commend the Te Maru o Rereahu Trust for all the work that those people have put into advancing this settlement. At the end of the day the descendants of the four iwi involved in today’s settlement legislation can finally lay to rest the grievance of their grandparents. I mihi to them all and I commend these bills to the House.