Williams Arena; Dean JacquiARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Mr Speaker tēnā koe and tēnā koutou to the members of Ngāti Kahungunu who may be watching this online today. It's a real pleasure to rise and speak to what is the second reading of this bill that makes up part of the process for the settlement between the Crown and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua. This speech from me will be technical. It's the first opportunity that I have had as a member of the Māori Affairs Committee to comment on the work of the select committee which has been broad and wide ranging into the history of how we came to this settlement. So let me take this opportunity to comment on the history of how we have come to this bill over what has been broadly a 200-year process to get to this point and to say that I hope I get to speak in the third reading of this bill about the more substantive elements of this settlement. The select committee's work on this bill—really we did need to focus on the history of it and how both the negotiations between the Crown and this part of Ngāti Kahungunu had come to be but also how those breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi that the Crown committed had led the Crown to negotiating this in the first place. Because this rich historical tapestry that the committee uncovered through the select committee process—through advice from officials which was very very helpful and the very useful submissions of the various groups that have an interest in this—is really important. It began in 1845 during the Crown's first encounter with Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua where the Crown pre-judged their guilt in what was a dispute with settlers and forced Ngāti Kahungunu in response to cede tens of thousands of acres at Maungaroa with threats of armed violence at that time.During the late 1840s and early 1850s the Crown threatened to end Pākehā settlement in Wairarapa and Tāmaki nui-a-Rua unless Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua sold their land to the Crown and gave up what were then pastoral leases which were providing that hapū with income and trade benefits whilst retaining ownership of the land. So this history starts with misunderstandings that resulted in huge land losses for a people who were cooperating with settlement in their area and who wanted the economic benefits of that.By 1853 the Chiefs and people of Ngatikahungunu" signed the Castlepoint deed which is their first land sale to the Crown. And in that year Governor George Grey met with the Komiti Nui which was the large meeting of Ngāti Kahungunu to hear plans for future land sales. Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua were led to expect substantial educational health and economic benefits from settlement as the real payment for land sales and the Crown agreed to use some of the profits it made from on-selling certain lands to provide a koha fund to be managed "in committee" with Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua in settlement of some of these benefits. That didn't happen. In fact immediately following that agreement the Crown purchased approximately 1.5 million acres well over half of the traditional rohe of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua and those obligations continued not to be met further into the 1860s and early 1900s. From 1866 the Native Land Court operated in Wairarapa and Tāmaki nui-a-Rua determining the ownership of Māori land and converting customary title into title derived from the Crown a process which resulted in further land losses for those people.Fast forward then to the process which we are in today. In 2012 this document was signed and agreed—it's the deed of mandate—on behalf of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua. And in this deed of mandate—this is a process which has come to be a part of Treaty settlements where we agree who represents who at the table who's in a Treaty settlement. So much of what the select committee was having to consider at this juncture was actually on the table then. It was: which hapū are within this group who are being represented? It was discussed then in a process which went around the rohe and involved claimant groups from the marae who are involved. It named those hapū that we are still having debate about at this point. It has gone around the traps since then. So it's useful to understand how that document kind of came to be which was this iterative process that began then.That took about four years to get from that deed of mandate ratification process to then the Crown and the trust signing an agreement in principle. That sort of document is about this long. [Holds up a thick stack of paper] You'd think that an agreement in principle might be a heads of agreement and a short wee thing. But actually a substantive amount of the agreement about the lands that would be settled with the Crown about what sort of area the Crown was discussing and again the hapū that were involved and the people who would ultimately be represented—that was agreed in 2016.Then we run into the trouble that a number of my colleagues have discussed today and was at issue in the select committee's determinations. I think the Minister did a very good job at summarising for the House those issues that we were discussing but they really come down to these two Waitangi Tribunal claims Wai 85 and Wai 429.It's useful I think for the House to understand the select committee's process when we considered these things. We were always aware that there was a potential for the select committee to be making recommendations to the House which included issues of legislative rights which might have been extinguished. It was incumbent upon all select committee members around the table to make sure that we understood exactly what those rights were if we were going to recommend to the House that they were extinguished.Now my process for going through those decisions was to ask the submitters. I asked the representatives from those Waitangi claims what they thought those rights were and what they thought their paths to resumption were. It was important for all select committee members to be able to do that but what was most important was to be able to ask the Minister to further explain his rationale for determining that there wasn't a path forward for those resumption applications.If you'll just indulge me Madam Speaker I will give you some of the reasons that the Minister gave us for his determination that on balance the path available to those claimants in the courts needed to be considered in light of these other factors.We were advised by officials that the Minister had taken into account that the settlement trust who are part of this deed of settlement made an informed decision to proceed to settlement and continued to support the settlement legislation being introduced before the Supreme Court hearing. That's relevant to the select committee's considerations because as my colleague Tāmati Coffey said we heard from these submitters that they want to be able to move on that they do not want us to continue what has been an almost 200-year history of delay in realising the rights that these people the tūpuna thought they were getting from the Crown.The second is a clear majority of Ngāti Kahungunu claimant community who engaged in the vote on the enhanced settlement package—so this is after that history that I took us through—voted in support of proceeding to settlement. This is after those claims were considered; Ngāti Kahungunu came back to the table and they voted once again to proceed.There had already been a three-year delay since progress with the deed of settlement was deferred to allow the Wai 85 and Wai 429 claims to be heard by the tribunal. This was also a factor in deciding for the select committee what our recommendation would be. I think on this point the fact that there had been a delay in the opportunity to come to the table was an important one.I would say that the select committee have really carefully considered our responsibility here to really carefully examine this legislation inviting the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations back to the committee—and also hearing his explanation today in the House about why he made those determinations are all part of why we as a committee are recommending to the House to support this bill. At its third reading we will be able to traverse the benefits of the settlement package that we believe on balance are the right thing from the Crown to do and that's why I support this bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Harete Hipango—five minutes."