Turei Metiria: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:15172] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou katoa! Te manuhiri tuarangi nga kaumatua nga rangatira nga tungane nga tuakana koutou o Ngati Awa kua tae tautoko mai i tenei ahiahi nau mai haere mai whakatau mai. Tena hoki koutou me te huhua o o tatou mate e kore e taea e tatau te aukatia haere e nga mate.Kua whakanaumaihia e ena o o tatau matua tupuna.E ki ana te korero oti atu te po nau mai te ao.Huri noa i to tatau piringa nei e tu kaha nei tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa . 
[ 
Greetings to you all! Welcome to the visitors from afar to the elders chiefs brothers and senior peers of Ngati Awa who have arrived here this afternoon in support.Welcome. Greetings to you in respect of our many deaths which we are not able to avoid. Farewell the dead. Those of our ancestors who have gone before you are there to welcome you. It is said that when night is done the world of light replaces it.And so to all of you throughout this building of ours which stands firmly before us greetings greetings greetings 
.] 
This settlement arises out of confiscations of land made by the Crown in order to punish Ngati Awa for alleged rebellions in the 1860s. The alleged rebellions arose out of the participation by some Ngati Awa hapu in the Tai Rawhiti force that was intending to go to the Waikato to assist the iwi there as well as out of the retribution for the killing of four people in 1865. When the Crown executed arrest warrants in response to those killings the Crown’s force destroyed considerable property and laid waste to many pa within the rohe of Ngati Awa causing massive damage to the hapu. Over 30 men were arrested under those warrants. All of them were imprisoned and two were executed. Ngati Awa for generations has carried the stigma of “tangata hara” as a result. 
When the Waitangi Tribunal heard the case in the late 1990s it was clearly of the view that the confiscation of the lands of Ngati Awa was contrary to Te Tiriti o Waitangi that there was no rebellion to justify the confiscations and that the confiscations as effected were outside the law. About 245000 acres of land were confiscated in 1866 and eventually about 77000 acres were returned but the land was returned to individuals—contrary to tikanga Maori. Of course those lands became more susceptible to partition fragmentation and land alienation because they were held in private title and not by the collective from whom the land was stolen. 
Ngati Awa entered into the direct negotiations process in a formal way around 1996 I understand. Prior to that Ngati Awa had been involved in a variety of negotiations with various Governments since the 1980s. It had built up considerable experience and background which should have provided a strong basis for a relatively smooth settlement process one would think. But despite that long experience and the clear position of the tribunal this settlement has been unnecessarily delayed which has caused enormous and unjustified stress to be put on Ngati Awa. The delay was specifically caused by the Crown’s refusal to accept the governance structure that Ngati Awa considered best met its needs and which with minor alterations could have met the Crown’s requirements. But instead of working constructively with Ngati Awa the Crown took a policy position from which it refused to move which has caused a very costly delay. 
The settlement process has been described as one of “pauperising” an iwi—of draining critical resources over long periods as a means of undermining an iwi and strengthening the Government’s negotiating position. One example is the Crown’s approach to funding the direct negotiations process which is under considerable criticism. Thankfully Ngati Awa was able to receive some support for the negotiations from the Crown Forestry Rental Trust because its settlement includes some forestry land but that does not relieve the Crown of its obligation to provide assistance to iwi to negotiate with the Crown on an equal footing. The Crown expects iwi to maintain a negotiation over a long period of time but remains stingy with its resources. The lack of resourcing has received some criticism that it is in part a Crown policy to run iwi into the ground and that perhaps by doing that an iwi will fight a little less than it would otherwise and the Crown will be victorious in the iwi’s defeat. The Greens certainly agree with the concern that it is grossly unjust and unfair that iwi must get into debt in order to seek redress for past wrongful Crown actions. A fair and just process firstly would have been designed by the treaty partners and second requires equally resourced and informed parties ideally negotiating on a level playing field with full disclosure of information at the outset of proceedings. 
The Greens continue to be highly critical of a settlement process where the iwi who are the aggrieved party have no authority or control over that process. We understand that the necessary boundaries in a negotiation should be jointly negotiated if they are to be fair but in the settlement process that is simply not the case. The Government sets its own policy and positions and remains inflexible with a “take it or leave it” approach that is not fair negotiation but a managed bullying. We understand that there was little negotiation with the Crown over the amount of financial compensation for example that was eventually provided in the settlement. Ngati Awa presented its views and the Crown came back with its quantum but unsurprisingly the Crown provided very little in the way of justification for the amount of compensation it offered. Again it was a “take it or leave it” approach not a negotiation. 
Ngati Awa did find more flexibility in negotiating cultural redress and has as part of its settlement a number of statutory acknowledgments deeds of recognition protocols place-name changes and transferred sites to name just some of that redress. However the cultural redress package and its protocols and advisory committees is a poor substitute for recognition of the treaty relationship. For example providing for Ngati Awa to express its views to the Ministry for the Environment but not to the Minister on the application of Treaty of Waitangi and Resource Management Act issues gives very little practical effect to te tiriti and is in fact in our view a watering-down of it. Another example is clause 21 of the bill which gives the Minister the authority to amend or cancel protocols after consulting and having regard to the views of Ngati Awa. But again Ngati Awa does not have any control or decision making over that process and there is little there for it. The principles of fairness and justice that supposedly guide the settlement process are not actually a true reflection of the process. It is a political one in which the Crown sets the framework and Maori are continually expected to compromise. 
In my second reading speech on the Ngati Ruanui settlement some time ago I referred to a description of the Crown’s process as one of the duress of poverty whereby the needs of hapu are such that every opportunity must be taken to build resources in order to undo the deprivation and harm caused by over a century of legislative violence committed against Maori even where those resources fall massively short of what was wrongfully taken. After witnessing the signing of the deed of settlement for the Ngati Awa claim it became clear that the Crown the Ministers and the officials will never understand at what a cost that was to the rangatira who have fought for so long to obtain recognition of the crimes restitution for the theft and a simple but genuine apology. Surely no one can fail to see the irony of the Government making its heartfelt apology for its past wrongful confiscations against Ngati Awa while—as I stand here in the House now—a select committee is hearing strenuous and articulate objections to a further wrongful confiscation of land within the rohe of Ngati Awa. 
What is an apology worth? The Greens acknowledge that this settlement is the best that Ngati Awa could have secured under the current settlement policy and we congratulate Ngati Awa on pursuing some restitution through that demanding and unjust process. Despite our serious misgivings about the underlying nature of the settlement process and the long and difficult path that is involved we understand that the people of Ngati Awa are confident that for them this settlement provides a measure of rangatiratanga. That is why the Greens will support the referral of this bill to the select committee.