Hauiti Claudette: Te Urewera-Tūhoe Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHauiti Claudette: Te Urewera-Tūhoe Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14150. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Ka tū ake ahau ki te mihi i te iwi o Ngāi Tūhoe tēnā koutou katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to acknowledge the people of Ngāi Tūhoe greetings to you all the tribe of Tūhoe.]This has been a long journey for Ngāi Tūhoe and although we need to reflect on the significance of today we must also focus on passing this bill the Te Urewera-Tūhoe Bill and setting in motion the next phase of the Tūhoe and Crown relationship. This bill gives effect to the deed of settlement signed at Parliament on 4 June 2013 by Te Kotahi ā Tūhoe Trust iwi negotiators and the Crown. It was a momentous occasion with almost a thousand Ngāi Tūhoe members in attendance. The bill provides redress for Ngāi Tūhoe’s historic Treaty claims.Ngāi Tūhoe’s grievances are significant and long standing. The impacts of Crown actions were severe—almost the worst in our history. They include raupatu during the 1860s and Crown military operations that resulted in widespread destruction and loss of life. This bill provides a historic account of and apology for these terrible breaches of the Treaty. It provides commercial redress totalling $170 million along with the earlier on-account forestry settlement as part of the Central North Island Iwi Collective. It also provides for mana motuhake redress.Mana motuhake has unique meanings for different iwi. For Ngāi Tūhoe mana motuhake is connected to Te Urewera the whenua within which they dwell—these lands that sustained Tūhoe in times of adversity and in times of peace. Simply put mana motuhake is entwined with Tūhoetanga. Mana motuhake is in the songs sung the haka performed and on the haki that has become known as Tūhoe’s symbol.Mana motuhake for Tūhoe is simply but implicitly Tūhoe whenua Tūhoe tangata Tūhoe self-determination the distinctiveness of autonomy self-sufficiency self-respect self-discipline and independence of judgment and decision making. Mana motuhake o Tūhoe is responsibility for wise and beneficial leadership protecting the environment and therefore the resources of the community its life force and its integrity. By cleaving to that ethos Tūhoe will pursue and enhance the autonomy of its people and its homeland deciding how they will develop manage and maintain health education infrastructure employment capability and leadership.This bill incorporates a social service management plan for the Tūhoe rohe governing relationships with and better management and delivery of services by keyCrown agencies and Tūhoe over the long term. At the heart of the settlement in the bill are the new arrangements for Te Urewera. Ngāi Tūhoe’s relationship with Te Urewera is unique. The significance of Te Urewera to Ngāi Tūhoe is that the people are embedded in the landscape. They breathe as one. With the rolling contours so too does the blood within each Tūhoe descendant flow. Te Urewera and Ngāi Tūhoe are not an extension of each other; they are each other and one another.Te Urewera National Park was established in 1954 but its origins date back to the New Zealand Wars and the rongopai agreed between Tūhoe and the Crown in 1871. After invasion and unjust confiscation in 1866 and 3 years of the Crown’s brutal scorched earth tactics from 1869 to 1871 which devastated the district and left one in eight Tūhoe dead—most from starvation and illness—peace was welcomed. In exchange for Tūhoe continuing to preserve the peace the Crown pledged to leave what was left of Te Urewera as an inviolate protectorate within which Tūhoe through Te Whitu Tekau would manage their own affairs.For a time after 1871 the Government respected Tūhoe’s wishes to preserve their homeland but the edges of Te Urewera were progressively nibbled away through shady shonky Government land deals with neighbouring iwi who held shared interests in Te Urewera’s border lands. By the 1890s Te Urewera was an encircled land and Tūhoe strived to preserve what remained. When the Government began to impose costly surveys of their land in 1892 Tūhoe protested. The military including an Auckland artillery detachment were promptly sent in to enforce the survey and 15 Tūhoe were arrested and imprisoned. We heard the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations talking about Premier Richard Seddon’s visit to Te Urewera in 1894.In 1896 Parliament enacted the Urewera District Native Reserve Act. This purported to provide for a measure of local self-government over a 656000 acre Urewera reserve and for decisions about the land the use of the land to be made collectively according to Māori custom. However the Crown never implemented the self-government provisions of the Act and undermined its protective provisions. In April 1916 there was the assault by 70 armed police on Maungapōhatu to arrest the prophet Rua Kenana—an illegal act in which two Tūhoe men were shot dead.Roading and survey costs imposed on Tūhoe under the 1921 Urewera consolidation scheme resulted in the significant loss of land. Harsh tactics were used to acquire land at Waikaremoana. The Act was repealed in 1922. In 1954 the Crown established Te Urewera National Park which included most of Tūhoe’s traditional lands. The Crown did not consult Tūhoe about this and did not recognise Tūhoe as having any special interests in the park or its management.This legislation provides new arrangements that confirm Tūhoe to Te Urewera and provide for that connection to be strengthened through Tūhoe’s role in its governance and management. Te Urewera will no longer fall under the National Parks Act. It has its own mana its own mauri. The legislation provides that Te Urewera will have its own legal identity and that the land will be vested in that identity.Tūhoe will have an increasing role in management over time with the Department of Conservation working alongside Tūhoe. Tūhoe and the Department of Conservation will enhance Te Urewera as a place of outstanding natural recreational and cultural value. It will be a place that all New Zealanders will enjoy. This is not the end of the Ngāi Tūhoe - Crown relationship but a new beginning of a post-settlement relationship. This bill gives mana to mana motuhake o Ngāi Tūhoe to go forward confidently to set its economic growth agenda to invest domestically and globally to investigate and enter joint ventures and to develop manage and sustain Ngāi Tūhoe business operations. Nō reira ka whakatau au i tēnei pire ki te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. Kia ora.[And so I support this bill to the House. Greetings to you all. Thank you.]Bill read a first time.Billreferred to the Māori Affairs Committee.