Brownlee Gerry: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20697] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
Tuwharetoa o Te Moana a Toi tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
And so my greetings to you all Tuwharetoa from the Bay of Plenty.  
] 
This is a good day for the New Zealand Parliament because it marks more progress not only for NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty but for the country as a whole. The National Party is very pleased to support this settlement bill because it has made a big commitment to ensuring that the settlement process moves more smoothly and with greater speed in the near future. 
Many people would wonder why we separate out some of our concerns about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi from our commitment to the preservation of te reo Maori and the speedy resolution of treaty grievances. It is all pretty simple. Our view is that the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed as many rights to non-Maori as it did to Maori. I ask people to consider that in light of this particular settlement. Many people will never understand quite why settlements are done but what we have today in this bill’s preamble is all the history that indicates why a grievance exists. 
In essence in the early part of New Zealand’s modern history post-1840 there were clearly occasions when the two main groups of people here Maori and non-Maori had disagreements. In this case the disagreement is well-documented right through to the start of the Waikato wars in about 1862. There was a subsequent confiscation from NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty of some 87000 acres because they fought against the Crown. Even though the Crown at the time afforded a certain amount of amnesty to many of the people involved in those early conflicts the land remained confiscated. 
As far back as 1863 the New Zealand Settlements Act of that year was designed for the hearing of claims for the return of confiscated land. But in the case of this claimant group the 87000 hectares was not given back to the entire iwi; rather it was split among about 14 people considered suitable to hold the land. I think that in essence that would be the reason for the long-held grievance of the claimant group. If that is not entirely the reason forgive me but it is what I seize upon as being a good way of illustrating why we go through the settlement process. 
All this legislation does today effectively is to confirm for NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty what article 2 of the treaty confirms for any New Zealander today who holds and owns land or other property. Therefore as a settlement bill it is a statement that in this country people who are wronged can have that wrong put right with goodwill and with the right lead from the Government. I think that when we look back on this part of history perhaps in a hundred years from now when most of us will not be here—I will probably still be here but many others will not—we might well say that this was an interesting period in our history. We might say that it was a period in which a lot of the dislocation of direction that occurred in the early years up to about 1880 and then the ignoring of the grievances that were created right through probably until the mid 1980s were put right and that it was a period when as a nation we were able to be much firmer on the ground in relation to the rights the treaty guarantees to all of us. 
It is that claim—that the treaty guarantees as many rights to me a non-Maori as it does to anyone who is Maori—that probably causes the most contention and political discussion at the present time. Nobody who clings to the treaty as being important to him or her should see any threat to that relationship coming from the position we take. We simply say the treaty has a series of rights that all New Zealanders can claim and this settlement bill ratifies that. So our message to NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty is: “Congratulations on reaching the end of a very long road and best wishes for where this settlement will take the group.” 
We know that there are some pressing problems in this country that cannot be ignored by any Government. One of those problems is the wealth-base of the country. New Zealand is not a wealthy country despite what we like to tell ourselves compared with our neighbour across the ditch—Australia. People ask whether that is a fair comparison. It is a fair comparison if people are choosing to leave here and go there. One of the interesting things is that groups like NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty will not leave here because this is very much their home—just as much as it is the home of anybody else who has come here. Individuals in families may well choose to leave so the need to address that economic gap between Australia and us is quite pressing. 
But when we look just at us we see there is a massive gap between the average incomes of non-Maori New Zealanders and Maori. That gap is about $6000 a year—a huge income gap. When people get wound up about treaty settlements and fisheries settlements and everything else I think it is interesting to consider that if we took all the money that goes into those settlements and divided it among the people who claimed to be Maori in the last census we would give them about $2000 each—once. But dealing with that income gap that disparity within our own economy would give them $6000 on average per year. 
So the sort of settlement that is being ratified in this bill the handing to NgatiTuwharetoa of the tools to carve their own destiny not only in their tribal and cultural sense but also economically is as important for the rest of the country as it is for those who receive the settlement. I say again to NgatiTuwharetoa that we congratulate them on the long years they have struggled to see this success. We wish them all the best for a bright future. It is not only theirs but also for this entire country—for us. No reira tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.