Turei Metiria: Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Turei Metiria: Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5332] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou katoa e te iwi e nga iwi. Tena koutou katoa. I am pleased to be able to stand to speak on the third reading of the Port Nicholson Block (Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika) Claims Settlement Bill. It is important for us in this House to recognise and to congratulate iwi who have pursued settlements through the settlement process. It is a long and laborious difficult and expensive task. Those who undertake it deserve enormous congratulations on the work that they do. Settlements though do not give me much pleasure and they certainly are not legislation that I enjoy speaking about in this House. I have expressed and the Green Party has expressed in the past a great deal of concern about the way that settlements are dealt with by the Crown. This settlement like all other settlements highlights the flaws of the process that the Crown has established and it clearly shows how those flaws impact on the iwi first and foremost. But none the less the flaws never seem to encourage the Crown to truly look at the process to deal with those flaws so that subsequent iwi are not subject to those same problems. 
I am aware that there has been discussion in the Chamber about the concept of forgiveness that is included in this legislation and it truly is a remarkable step for iwi to include that concept in their settlement. Personally I confess I find it difficult; the Crown does not deserve forgiveness. It will never deserve forgiveness for what occurred. But it does deserve—“instructions” is not the right word—a clear indication from Maori as to what needs to change such that the Crown can make good the harm that the Crown committed in the past. Although I fully acknowledge the right of the iwi to include the concept in the legislation—I congratulate them on taking such a significant step and the Green Party is deeply humbled by that choice—we none the less believe that the Crown’s obligation is such that firstly it cannot be forgiven and secondly that that obligation can be met only by what it does as opposed to what it says. 
I guess that it is here where the settlement process in our view is so significantly flawed. The flaws in the settlement process are of course structural flaws. They include the process by which the Crown picks winners in settlement processes partly by the use of the large natural groupings process but by other processes as well. Also negotiations often begin by the Crown putting its view on the table. That view then very rarely ever changes such that iwi are often not given any real room for negotiation as to the restitution. Further the negotiating power and resources lie with the Crown—with the perpetrator in these cases—as opposed to those who have suffered the harm. And the resources and the negotiating power are so completely out of proportion in favour of the Crown. The minuscule proportion of the losses that are returned to iwi is never discussed in the public domain and it is not made clear by the Crown. The Crown never clearly identifies just how little of what was taken and lost is actually returned. Because of that failure by the Crown in the settlement process the community never gets the full picture of what the claim is really about what was really lost and that what is returned in the public’s name to iwi is just a tiny tiny percentage of what was taken. It is a percentage that under any other kind or form of law where one would expect restitution or some kind of compensation would not be accepted by any other community. No other community would accept that minuscule proportion of return. But the community does not know that. All they hear about is millions of dollars. All they hear about is claims. And the Crown makes no effort to inform and educate the community about the nature of the claims especially in local areas such that there is awareness and willingness to undertake this process by the public as a whole. 
I said that the impact of the flaws in the process is then borne by the iwi—and it is. The Crown takes no hits if you like for the flaws in the process. It is the iwi who suffer the criticism of a community that does not understand what the story is why those resources are being returned and why a few million dollars simply cannot truly reflect the fiscal value of what was lost or the need of the iwi at that time to use those resources to provide for ongoing support for the iwi over a long period of time. It is the iwi who suffer the division within their hapu and their iwi from the process by which winners are picked by the Crown. We have seen that reflected here in the settlement and we know that not all iwi not all hapu and not all members within this settlement are happy with the process and some have split away. The harm of that division is borne by the whanau themselves. I am not talking about the Crown—the Crown does not need to take any responsibility for that and indeed the Crown often says it refuses to take responsibility for that. It tells iwi that if they have a problem internally they should sort it out. But the problem is caused by the process that forces iwi into this—and it is force; it is duress. This is the only process on the table. Iwi have no choice but to engage with the Crown on the settlement process because the duress of poverty is real for the collective that needs to care for its own. Indeed such care by iwi for their own is demanded by this Parliament and by the community but with very few resources and within a structural settlement process that is geared against them. 
I know that there are members here in the gallery who have worked so hard on this settlement and my words are not words of congratulation or celebration for it. But it is my role in this Parliament to hold the Crown to account for the process by which this legislation came about and to speak where I can on behalf of those for whom the settlement process has caused harm. There are some of those people within the iwi to whom this settlement bill relates. So I make no apologies for setting out our concerns here in this Chamber today on the third reading of this bill. 
The Green Party has a very clear policy on these issues. It is our view that there is a need to develop a process of models of restitution of nationally sustainable compensation over time but a process that is worked and developed by Maori by iwi and by hapu for the losses they have sustained. I guess it is part of the process of restorative justice that those who have lost must be at the heart of the process and must have control over the process and be decision makers within that process and that is certainly not the case with the settlements. We have had settlements in this country for a very long period of time and a lot of work has gone into trying to make the process better particularly by iwi by Maori. The Crown has tended to resist that because the process works so well for it. Perhaps we may see over more time as more settlements are completed a shift but until the process is one where Maori are at the heart of it and are decision makers over how the process is structured we will not have a truly comprehensive and durable settlement process for these issues. 
Finally I reiterate the Green Party’s support for this legislation; we always support settlement legislation. I reiterate our support for the iwi the whanau and the hapu who have worked so hard on this legislation to make sure that it came to fruition and who have borne the cost of it and who will now have the responsibility of seeing it through and making it effective. I wish them all the very best most sincerely all the very best for doing that work and I hope that now there is some more information in the community about the settlement. I hope that the community understands it better and that the Crown might start to make these steps towards creating a truly durable process by Maori for Maori. Kia ora koutou.