Jackson WillieHon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Māori Development): Mr Speaker—[Interruption]DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just remind those in the gallery to observe the tikanga of the House which is that those in the galleries do not participate in the debate. I'd appreciate that thank you.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: E mihi ana ki a koutou Whakatōhea i tae mai nei ki te whakarangatira i te kaupapa ataahua i tēnei wā tēnei te mihi ki koutou. Nō reira tēnā koutou haramai haramai nau mai.[I greet you Whakatōhea who have arrived here to honour the beautiful topic at this time. I acknowledge you. So thank you welcome welcome welcome.]Can I say first of all it's wonderful to see so many Labour Party members in the House today. It really is good to have you along to tautoko the Labour Party. Thank you very much for your attendance here today.I want to acknowledge some of our representatives in particular Jason Pou and Maui Hudson for their mahi. No doubt about it we all know that the mahi that has been put into kōkiri this kaupapa. E mihi ana ki a koutou. And our koroua there Robert Edwards. No doubt about it without your mahi your support this wouldn't have got there.We've heard all the figures and the history and no doubt there'll be some more good kōrero coming but I was thinking about this and I was looking up there and I saw our mate Dudu Te Kāhautū Maxwell. I wanted to say to him kei konei a Peeni Te Kāhautū your irāmutu. Kei konei ia ki te whakamārama i te kōrero ki koe. [I wanted to say Peeni is here Te Kāhautū your nephew. He is here to explain the narrative to you.]I wanted to acknowledge Te Kāhautū because he's a very supportive man of the Crown and Government as we all know. I was looking at one of his statements and he said this: We all know the Crown is the thief and the Crown is the judge and the Crown is the juror so it works in the Crown's favour." But we're very very grateful for the hundred million. So I want to thank you there whanaunga for all your support. I think that's what it's about for us; in Te Ao Māori we understand the process and the process is not fair as he quite rightly said. But we do these deals because we have to move ahead. And I talk about this all the time and we all know. You know we can go back to the start of this kaupapa when Tame Iti was talking about not settling because you know it was just crumbs. I think that was about 1997 1998—oh no sorry. That was about 1995 1996 when him and Annette Sykes eh were going around and having a hui. I remember those times vividly. But our leaders made decisions and I mihi to those leaders because they were not silly. The Mahutas and the O'Regans were not silly. They knew their $170 million settlements were just crumbs but from those crumbs they built goldmines and they've got empires. So that's where our leaders are at. We have brilliant leaders. So I always defend that leadership even against some of my own whanaunga who said "Oh they blinkin' went and sold out. They went and got crumbs." They had foresight those types of leaders and I mihi to them. And I mihi to your whanaunga Ranginui Walker today. I mihi to him because of his bravery because of his courage. In my former life as some of you know I was an interviewer and I did a lot of mahi in Māori media. I interviewed someone some day and talked about Whakatōhea. I said "Did Ranginui make a mistake in terms of not settling?" It was a big debate on ngā reo irirangi. Some said he did and some said he didn't but the reality was the unfairness of the Treaty settlement process put your tribe back many many years. It wasn't Ranginui who put the settlement back; it was the process. And I think it's one of the saddest stories to go up in 1986 1987 and put forward the principles and say that this settlement is unfair and then to go to the back of the queue—terrible. That's the unfairness of the process. So here we are settling 25 28 years later. It haunted Ranginui. He rang me and we had a hui. He was riri with me for bringing this kōrero up. I felt it was my obligation as the interviewer to bring it up but I took it from the koroua because he was close to my father and it was only right that I just took it from him. But I'll never forget how upset he was because he wanted that settlement. And I said "Kei te pai matua. I take your criticism. I'm just asking the question." But the point that I was trying to make was that the process was unfair. At the end of it we were fine. But he said he thought about Whakatōhea in that process. Every week—it was always on his mind. This is what our people have to go through. So I mihi to that koroua. He was a great koroua not just for Whakatōhea but for Te Ao Māori. And that is the reality that the House needs to hear about this settlement process. This is what our people go through. It's not just about the unfairness of the pūtea; it's about balancing what you have to do with your iwi thinking about the future thinking if you're a sell-out—all that sort of stuff. It's tough in terms of Māori leadership. So that's really my kōrero today. I just wanted to put that out there because we're only going to have one reading on this. Although I do expect to come back after the election for a second and third reading—don't we Labour? Rawiri Waititi: When you start being nice to us.Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I'll try and be nice to you. We've got these Māori Party characters in the House you know—no respect for the House but I'm sure we'll get some whakangahau a little bit later on from my whanaunga over there.I wanted to make that point to whānau who came here today because you'll hear all the intricacies of this but I'm sure we're going to hear some good kōrero. But it's taumaha for our people. So I mihi to our rangatira who are here. Thank you for your service to your people. You're a great example. No one gets rich being a Treaty—well you get two or three who get rich. We won't mention their names but—yeah yeah there might be more than two or three I bet. But I know—I've been watching the process. My wife was a negotiator for the Te Arawa Lakes. I watched what she went through for years and I've seen whānau and friends—you know it's a sacrifice. So I salute the sacrifice. I salute Ranginui. I salute you too Dudu Te Kāhautū for your mahi ataahua. [your beautiful work.]Koutou katoa i tae mai nei i tēnei wā tēnei te mihi ki a koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā anō tātou katoa.[All of you who have arrived here at this time I acknowledge you thanks and greetings to all of you.]"