SpeechIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a privilege to take a call on this bill. I'm not going to replicate the election speech of my colleague down the front here but I'm going to congratulate him and also Ngāti Kahungunu on the importance they must have in this House because the Māori Party have full representation here this afternoon.But aside from that it is a privilege to take a call on these Treaty bills. I often get to speak on Treaty bills in the House; never having sat or having the privilege of sitting on the Māori Affairs Committee. I think it's a particularly difficult issue really for the House to deal with. Also I think it's extraordinarily difficult for those people who effectively are negotiating away not their rights so much as negotiating away the challenges of almost 200 years in this case and in many other cases where effectively you're coming to an agreement on some issues that have occurred over virtually 200 years and settling I suppose in the best interests of both the iwi and of New Zealand in general because we need to find a way through this. When you look around the world—and there's been some reference to this in the House already this afternoon—these challenges are almost universal around the world in one form or another. I think as the Minister said earlier there's no perfect way of getting to the end of a Treaty settlement. It'll never be perfect and we can't expect it to be perfect but at least those people who put their energy and effort into trying to make it perfect I think are pretty special. They're taking quite a risk when you think about it because effectively they're committing future generations of their whānau their family their iwi to I guess resolve a piece of history that's gone before them.I want to talk about one of those people very briefly this afternoon because I had the privilege of sitting beside him this morning. I just want to speak about the Hon Ron Mark who might not be the biggest man who's ever existed in this House but none the less in many ways he's very large. And the reason I want to talk about him is because he makes quite a mark on New Zealand history when you think about it. He's intimately involved in this agreement today. This morning we welcomed the Poseidon P-8s to Ōhākea which is actually my neighbour in the Rangitīkei and he was there. He of course was the Minister of Defence at the time those planes were ordered. And tomorrow morning he'll be back in the Wairarapa as the Mayor of Carterton; he's been the Mayor of Carterton before. I think that's typical of the type of people who get involved in these processes. Right throughout New Zealand and particularly in the north of my electorate you see many people who have a lot of influence not in political life so much as community life in New Zealand who are involved in these Treaty settlement negotiations and I think that reflects to a large extent the importance that is placed on these negotiations.I just want to speak very briefly about some issues that Dr Reti raised earlier in his speech and we spoke about it in a bill last week in the House related to Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne in the Wairarapa where there's some disagreement on a number of issues. There's always going to be disagreement on these in the back of these negotiations. It's inevitable because as I said earlier we're dealing with 200 years of history—very difficult to deal with in any other manner. And so I think it's important in this instance that Ngāti Kahungunu had the right to settle this process and get it out of the way—not get it out of the way from their perspective but get to a resolution in it because I think my friend from the Māori Party mentioned earlier that every day you delay these things devalues the value of the settlement to some extent. And I think that's a challenge for us all as well.I just wanted to read two things out of a media release or a release that came out at the time of the bill coming to the House for its first reading and it typifies almost every Treaty settlement bill that I've been part of. It seems extraordinary to me that Governments of the past did what they did and I think it's also extraordinary that we continue to do these things today. I suppose in 50 years' time we'll look back and think what we did today wasn't right. So you can never be right but I just want to read this very quickly: In 1853 the government promised Ngāti Kahungunu that it would set up a fund with the profits made from land sales. This it said would provide education health and economic benefits. The fund never arrived and neither did any benefits." And the second thing I want to read is: "In 1896 to protect and preserve Wairarapa Moana Ngāti Kahungunu gifted the lake to the Crown on the promise that it would create a reserve surrounding it. But this promise was also never fulfilled." Of course that was part of last week's discussion and the bill we dealt with last week.So I think that it's a pretty special day in any of these Treaty settlement processes when we get to the third reading. And I want to congratulate Ngāti Kahungunu and their negotiators and the people involved with them on getting to this point. I think as I've said you go into these things with significant trepidation and that's where we get to. I just want to very briefly mention one other point of these settlement bills which I think are quite special and have a lot of opportunity and I'll quote a little opportunity out of the Rangitīkei in a minute. But I noticed that part of this settlement are two Landcorp farms: one is Range View which my own family farm very close to. And that farm is now in trees. I'm sort of hoping that Range View won't end up all in pine trees one day too because it's some beautiful farmland on Range View and I would hope that that doesn't happen to it as has happened to some of that country in that part of New Zealand. The reason I quoted that is because in my very own electorate Flock House which also was part of my family historically is now called Te Hou and is a beautifully farmed farm. And it was part of a Treaty settlement process—came out of AgResearch actually. The Hon Chris Finlayson negotiated that with Ngāti Apa. But the reason I use that example is because it shows the advantage that can be gained from these Treaty settlements if suitable land is made available through them. And Range View in my view is the one I know a little bit about and I think that's certainly suitable land.So I just want to commend the way that this negotiation has taken place. Despite what some members of the House have said I hope that at least it provides some resolution to Ngāti Kahungunu and I have no problem commending this bill to the House."