Henare Tau: Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Henare Tau: Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:16829] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I too want to congratulate Te Arawa and welcome them here today. I also want to congratulate Dr Michael Cullen. My colleague Georgina te Heuheu has said that in the settlement procedures it behoves us all to have a large amount of passion in trying to come to arrangements and agreements and I want to personally commend the Deputy Prime Minister for his passion since he has taken the role of Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. I cannot say the same for the Ministers before him. I do not want to be nasty and use the occasion to be nasty but why break the habit of a lifetime? 
This is just another chapter in the long running story of Te Arawa. The chapter will be about battles fought and won with the Crown—it does not matter who was in Government. The story so far is that there are lots of people to congratulate—those who are not even here and those who unfortunately we will never see again. But the lifeblood of iwi is their story—the whakapapa not only of us as individuals but of things that happened and of how we got from point A to point B. I feel very privileged to be able to give my 10c worth on this historic occasion. 
There will be those in our community who say: “Well now that Te Arawa has settled its Treaty settlement hopefully it will go out and sort out the troubles of young people in Manurewa in Rotorua and all over the land.” Well that is not the iwi’s job. That is the job of all of us to do. I wish Te Arawa well in their journey and in the new chapters that are to be written from now until the end of time. 
There are those who have issues with this settlement and also with tomorrow’s big story. My wish for the Maori Affairs Committee is for those who have issues with this settlement to front up to the committee and put their submissions to it and then let us see where we go from there. I have another wish and it is for those who are in the gallery today who represent the other side of the settlement to take the opportunity now while the bill is in the select committee process to go and grab those people who are against this settlement and try and try—I know people have but God loves a trier. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Talk to your colleagues! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely I will talk to anybody who wants to push this forward and make this a long-lasting settlement. 
I will not speak for too much longer but I want to say that this is unlike other settlements. Its path to where we are now has been very rocky indeed. Ngai Tahu Tainui and the others who have come and settled have had a somewhat easier pathway and easier ride. So I congratulate Te Arawa on staying the course and on having an immense amount of patience. The patience does not go back to 2002 the patience does not go back to 1960; it goes back to when Maui was a little boy—that is how far back it goes. So I want to congratulate those who have stayed the course and I hope in my heart that those who have some worries about the settlement front up and use what has been put in place—what has been put in front of them vis-à-vis the Maori Affairs Committee process—to air their concerns. 
Not only is this another chapter in Te Arawa’s beautiful story but it is a chapter in our story as well. I think that all of us can be proud to be part of that story. One day when we are over this and over beating each other up saying “you did this and I did this and blah blah blah” we will have a vision for our nation and we will have an identity for our nation which will not be when we are playing in the Rugby World Cup of 2085 when most of us will not be here— 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: And winning! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —and when we will be winning. Instead of the woolly sheep as our identity it will be us as our identity that is on parade around the world—uniquely ours uniquely New Zealand’s uniquely Pakeha and uniquely Maori. This is the only place in the world where one could find such a gathering. 
I send congratulations to Te Arawa and to the Deputy Prime Minister. I look forward to the thousands and thousands of submissions that we get in front of our great select committee.