Henare Tau: Te Tau Ihu Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Tau: Te Tau Ihu Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10810. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TAU HENARE (National): E aku rangatira e aku kaumātua e ōku kuia tēnā koutou ā tēnā koutou tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou i haere mai i tēnei rā ki te whakarongo i ngā mema o te Whare Pāremata o Niu Tīreni nō reira nau mai haere mai ki taku Whare. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.[To my leaders elders respected women elders greetings greetings and greetings to you collectively. Acknowledgments to you who have come here today to listen to the members of the Parliament of New Zealand. Welcome welcome to my House. So compliments acknowledgments and congratulations to you all.]Most of the speakers here have some relationship with Te Tau Ihu iwi. I too have a relationship with Te Tau Ihu. One of my flatmates was from there. She is a woman. As a Ngāpuhi my job is to make sure that we do not get blamed for stuff that we did not do. But can I start by saying: another day another dollar. When I picked up the bill I thought to myself: “Woo hoo! What a good settlement.” But then I realised that it was for eight iwi. Although I laud every Labour settlement and every National settlement—and I emphasise “National settlement” in a couple of ways—I think our side has done an extremely good job of ploughing through the settlements. I also use the word “national” in terms of our country.Something still tells me that we the Crown have gotten off reasonably lightly. But then I also think to myself and I note that of all the Commonwealth countries around the world we actually lead the list in reconciliations in a reconciliation process so my hat does come off to the negotiators on the iwi side and on the Crown side. My hat does come off to the Minister and to all those people who play a role. And yes there are legs on the old dog Paul Swain whom as an Opposition member of Parliament I had a lot of time for and still do. It is good to see that the skills that we learn here can be used by everyone when we do leave here.I was ploughing through the bill looking for an apology from theMarlborough Express but I could not find one. We sit down and do these settlements and we can think that only last week a media organisation decided to use its editorial power—because that is what it is it is power—to poke fun at this country’s indigenous people. I want to say and put it on theHansardrecord of the House that I find the actions of theMarlborough Express and also the ChristchurchPressto be utterly disappointing.I want to name a few things and put them into this context: Wounded Knee Cochise Geronimo Chief Joseph the Trail of Tears and Sitting Bull. Those are all names of places and people who have been memorialised not only in the United States but also around the world. I wonder why we do not memorialise our own indigenous people. I wonder why we do not memorialise the areas of significance to this nation. There are areas of significance throughout all of our nation. I will not go into them because that might condemn me to talking about my Ngāpuhi heritage too much and I do not want to get into that area. But I do think that as part of the reconciliation process this has to be the first part. This has to be where we go in terms of reconciling our past.I love the fact that my colleague and my friend the Hon Nanaia Mahuta said that it is not about rewriting history but it is about correcting history and that concept of history that we in our school years in our formative years in the education system did not learn about all of this. That is another part that I hope one day this country can bring itself to—to memorialise and to educate our next generations about what actually happened to whom and by whom and the reason why we are all here. I think if we get to that space that would be great. That is a promise from me as the chairperson of the Māori Affairs Committee.Make no mistake these days are what I live for in this House. It is not about a taxation bill or an industrial relations bill or whatever. That is boring stuff although they have to happen. This is what gets me going because it shows that our nation is anation of leaders throughout the world on indigenous issues. We can pat ourselves on the back and we can say congratulations to each and every one of us.I agree with my colleague from the Greens that it is not enough. But just like anything it will never be enough. The sentence for a crime that happens in our community will never ever be enough.I want to promise as the chairperson of the Māori Affairs Committee that we will visit every area affected in the bill. We will listen. We will have fun. We will have laughter. There will be tears of joy and tears of sadness. That is part of the reconciliation process. That is part of getting to know who our nation really is. Do not forget that our nation is only 160-odd years old so we still have time to fix what is to come and make this a truly—truly—bicultural nation. You cannot have a multicultural nation unless you go through the process of biculturalism.I do want to end by saying a few words about the attribution of Ka Mate not so much about Ka Mate itself but what we are doing is hugely significant. Never forget that we did it first. New Zealand did it first—again. We seem to lead the world in race relations and we seem to lead the world in the treatment and the reconciliation process so I am over the moon that that is actually a step right out of left field. I stood in the House as the Minister of Māori Affairs and put through the education amendment bill aboutkura kaupapa andTe Aho Matua which was right out of left field. This again is something that I think our nation can be proud of and laud to the world that this is the way to go in terms of reconciling our past with our present which will become our future. Kia ora.