Smith Murray: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Smith Murray: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21863] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 Firstly I want to address the point raised by Stephen Franks about Speakers’ rulings. I listened to him with some concern because I have put forward a Supplementary Order Paper with regard to Part 4 and was therefore a little concerned that my amendment might be ruled out of order. I am pleased to say that when I look at Speaker’s ruling 102/4— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Your amendment is not out of order. 
MURRAY SMITH 
: Thank you Madam Chairperson. I note that the ruling basically says that one cannot change a settlement agreement reached between the Crown and other parties and I would be very wary if the House in dealing with legislation could not change it as long as it did not interfere with the terms of the settlement. Of course it does not do that. I thank you Madam Chairperson for your assurance that my amendment is not out of order. 
I want to look at the preamble to the bill and the comments that have been made about the retrospective analysis of history and the appropriateness of doing that. I note that the essential points of the preamble are in recital 15 where the Crown acknowledged to the Waitangi Tribunal in its interim response that: firstly the Waitara purchase and the wars that followed constituted an injustice and were therefore in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles; secondly that the confiscation of land as it occurred in Taranaki also constituted an injustice and was therefore in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles; thirdly that the confiscation had a severe impact upon the welfare economy and development of the iwi of Taranaki; fourthly that in general terms the delays in setting aside reserves contributed to the adverse effects of the confiscation; and finally that events relating to the implementation of the confiscation leading to the invasion of Parihaka in 1881 the invasion itself and its aftermath constituted a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles. 
Firstly I should state that I acknowledge that it appears from the recitals that the Crown acknowledged those issues to the Waitangi Tribunal so that they were non-contested matters. I commend the Crown for doing that. I have no problem with looking back in terms of history and doing a reassessment of the events that happened. Clearly the process in the Waitangi Tribunal through the historians that it employs is to try to reach an accurate view of what went on. To some extent the Crown is prepared to admit certain events so they are not contested. In other circumstances they are contested and it is the job of the tribunal to sort out just where the facts lie. That is an important role and I do not see it as a biased rewriting of history at all even though we look at it in the light of a new understanding perhaps of what was happening at the time. 
There is an underlying factor here that I think we do not take much account of in terms of the relationship that the Crown had with Maori at the time. It is something I think we need to recognise and I see a failure to appreciate it particularly in the National Party the New Zealand First Party and the ACT party. I see those parties really coming at these issues in terms of Maori grievance on the basis that the Crown arrived the Crown in one way or another assumed sovereignty and therefore the Crown through its Government imposed certain things and the Maori resistance was therefore somewhat unlawful. I am not sure whether they go so far as to believe that the Crown reaction was over the top which is effectively what this is talking about in terms of confiscations—that effectively the reaction was over the top. Nevertheless there is this simple understanding that the Government was the Government that it had the power and that resisting the power and Maori action were exactly the same and should be treated the same as any New Zealand citizen who resisted the authorities and resisted the police. 
One of the things we tend to lack in all this debate is to understand that the coming of particularly the British to New Zealand was the conflict or the “bringing together” to use a more impassive term of two sorts of governance entities. The Crown in the British tradition is one that had a Government ruling on a national basis and the people. In the Maori tradition one did not have a Government that ruled all the people. There were a number of iwi who were regional groups that had a governance role over the people. So here we had a “single Government ruling its people” system confronting a governance entity that was disparate and comprised a number of different iwi. 
 The question is how we amalgamate that. What is an appropriate way to amalgamate those two sorts of governance relationships? What has tended to happen—and I see this from the parties I mentioned—is an assumption that the governance of the country then became the governance of all people and iwi did not play any part in the process. That was largely because the sort of iwi groupings in that sort of governance authority had no parallel in terms of the British justice system that was then imposed. The closest one could get is local authorities but then local authorities were subject to central governance. Therefore it was a question of how iwi and the iwi governance structure then related into this process. I think that is what the treaty was endeavouring to do. 
I see a big distinction between article 2 and article 3 of the treaty. Article 3 states that Maori individually would have the same rights and duties as British citizens. That meant that as individuals Maori had the same relationship with the Government as any other individual. That is why I think it is legitimate to say that all New Zealanders are equal and there should be one law for all and all that sort of stuff that we hear from National members. I agree with that but what they fail to recognise is that article 2 of the treaty protected the place of iwi as a distinct authority that was unique to the New Zealand context. It is really the issue of how the iwi structure as it existed at that time relates to modern New Zealand that is the issue we are always confronting. 
It seems to me that we have to and we ought to acknowledge that iwi as a whole have a place that is somewhere between the governance of the whole country and the people as individuals and that the iwi protection in article 2 is something that we need to somehow acknowledge and recognise as we move forward as a nation. Therefore in the blending of the two cultures or the two nations—two peoples in one nation is perhaps the best way of phrasing it—we need to recognise that there is a place in terms of iwi. I do not think that at one extreme it is a replacement of governance so that effectively it is a two-tier system where Maori have their own authority. That is an apartheid-type system and I do not think that is what it intends. But neither do I think it means that iwi are simply no better than any other social grouping—the local club or society or someone else who might get some sort of grant from the Government. Iwi have a particular role in terms of their own people that needs to be acknowledged. I think it needs to be acknowledged in some sort of partnership function. 
So I come back to the preamble. When the Crown starts to take away the rights of iwi in terms of their own property and their governance structure and starts to destroy that as happened in these instances then that is where things get out of line. I think it is quite appropriate for the Crown to look back now looking at a fresh approach in terms of an understanding of the place of iwi in traditional New Zealand and say that iwi were destroyed and that there was an undermining of the governance authority that was protected by the treaty. So this acknowledgment is quite appropriate and it is appropriate to look at it from a contemporary basis and to say that these were wrongs that were done and we need to put them right. Of course this is a settlement agreement and therefore we are looking historically. I am also very interested in looking at the future and asking what is the place then of iwi in that sort of structure in today’s New Zealand. That is what I think we should be focusing a lot of our debate on and I am certainly keen to see that progressed as we talk further about the place that iwi should have within the structure of New Zealand governance.