Delahunty Catherine: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9527. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou ngā manuhiri katoa o te motu me te Whare. He mihi nui ki a Waitaha whānau hapū iwi in the second reading of the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill.[Thank you Mr Speaker and salutations to all the visitors of the nation and the House. A special acknowledgment to the family subtribe and tribe of Waitaha in the second reading of the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill.]It is our privilege to debate the second reading with no opposition to the redress proposed. Last night tears of joy and loud exclamation filled this House. Today a quieter but as deeply felt sense of justice permeates the kōrero. This process is so fundamental to our nation that I do wish the gallery was as full as it was last night. Every part of the whenua—ngā maunga ngā moana ngā awa—of Aotearoa is part of the rangatiratanga of the tangata whenua and this negotiation under Te Tiriti o Waitangi is lifelong for all of us. The form of the dialogue may change but it will always continue.The Green Party wants to acknowledge ngā tūpuna o Waitaha and the iwi hapū and whānau today who have worked so hard to get to this point. They have some key objectives in their negotiations which are to restore the mana and identity of Waitaha and of their tupuna Hakaraia correct the history of Waitaha and provide a foundation for the ongoing development of Waitaha through cultural revitalisation social enhancement and economic and political participation—and the Green Party says tautoko to that. Those key objectives need to be met as fully as they can be.Clearly along the road the Māori Affairs Committee did some really good work as did Waitaha and the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations in negotiating the overlapping claims around the maunga. It is obviously a very challenging issue but some major progress was made around joint cultural redress in the vesting of the peaks of Ōtānewainuku andPūwhenua to the iwi of Tauranga Moana Te Arawa and Waitaha. That is an important change that has happened during this process and it does express great generosity when an iwi is prepared to go through that process. It is not new it has always been like this in Aotearoa but it is worth noting and acknowledging.It is also important to acknowledge the Waitaha people whom I have met personally on the issue around the attempt byNewmont Waihī Gold and Glass Earth Gold to mine Muir’s Peak. I met then with some Waitaha people who laid out very clearly their passion for their maunga down to the ocean and their passion for preserving their waterways and protecting the area from mining. It was very humbling to have met those people and I want to acknowledge them.It is important to acknowledge that Waitaha bore the brunt of the colonisation in their rohe and that the story of HakaraiaMahika needs to be widely told and widely understood. A number of other MPs in this House have called for a parallel education process alongside these settlements so that Pākehā and tauiwi katoa in a rohe such as the Waitaha can be educated and can reassess the place where they live. The degree of ignorance amongst some of us cannot be overestimated. For the renaissance of Waitaha to thrive we need to pass this bill but that is only one part of the job. We—and I am speaking as a Pākehā—need to move with tangata whenua so that we cease to be a barrier to the aspirations and rights and dreams of ngā uri oHakaraiaMahika. The cultural aspects of the settlement are important but so is the wero that it is time for all of us to learn the truth of history.I have been a Te Tiriti educator for nearly 20 years and I am still a learner of the basics and a learner of the fundamental stories.Looking at our education many of us were taught nothing at all about raupatu. We were taught migration myths; we learnt so-called stick games and waiata without context. Nowadays supposedly there is a better education but at the same time there is still ignorance and a tendency for the presentation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi to be part of a history class for the few at senior secondary level who choose to study history. It is not history; it is both history and now. And the tendency is for teachers to avoid the controversial issues—the truth of raupatu the truth of racism the truth of privilege and colonisation—because it is painful. Of course it is painful. We all understand that. It is very very painful but it is actually very very empowering when we come to grips with it and can move forward as allies in that process.So that is why education needs to be parallel with Treaty settlement. If the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill is to meet its potential and the meaning of Te Tiriti of Waitangi is to live in full it is about the present relationships based on all the cultures embracing the colonisation history and through understanding the pain and loss and how some of us have benefited Pākehā can be those allies and supporters. That is vital. We believe that is nowhere more important than in the rohe of Waitaha where the history and the story is virtually invisible and maybe through this process will become visible to more people. That would be a great benefit—if it was visible and understood.Finally I want to address the reason why much to the annoyance of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Green Party talks about Treaty settlements in relation to deals. It is not to disrespect any of the processes or in fact the fantastic journey that people take; it is to acknowledge that we are not able to provide full redress through Parliament. If somebody stole my car and then offered to give it back to me but I first had to prove that the hub-cap which is all I was getting back even though it was dented was really my hub-cap or whether it was my friend’s hub-cap down the road I actually think I might feel that that was slightly unfair and that it might be considered to be a form of a deal. There is no disgrace in acknowledging the limitations that are possible. There is no disgrace for any of us in acknowledging that we cannot return to where we were in this country in the 1800s but there is disgrace in pretending—and I do not think anyone is in this House—that it is over that it is settled that it is done. We will not have settlement in the deeper sense—settlement inside our hearts and our minds—until we have learnt the true history of this country and when all parties respect the journey of Waitaha—all parties. The Crown and Māori cannot do it by themselves. It has to be the public of Aotearoa who come on board. There is a role for the Crown in education as well as in negotiating these arrangements.So with those words I would like to acknowledge the positive achievement of the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill. We look forward to supporting the third reading.