Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare tēnā koutou katoa. Tuatahi ka mihi au ki a Rangitāne o Manawatu tēnā koutou katoa. Ka tū au mō ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i te pānuitanga tuarua o tēnei pire ngā kerēme a Rangitāne o Manawatu. Nō Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi me Rangitāne au tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Richard Tūrei tōku matua ēngari kua hinga ia ki roto i ngā ringaringa o ngā atua i nāianei. [Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker and acknowledgments to you all throughout the House greetings. First of all I acknowledge Rangitāne o Manawatu greetings to you all. I stand to speak on behalf of the Greens in the second reading of this bill about the claims of Rangitāne o Manawatu. I belong to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi and Rangitāne; salutations to you all. My father is Richard Tūrei but he has fallen and is in the arms of the gods now.]My dad Richard was a farm labourer who was born and raised as a young man in Papawai but lived his adult life in Palmerston North. For his whole life he was a farm labourer so he did everything from deer hunting to farm labouring working all over the Manawatū. He worked all the way from Marton down to Ōpiki from Tangimoana to Pohangina. We as a whānau as a small family—a small working-class Māori family—lived all over the Manawatū area our whole lives. This was a place where there was great wealth all around us—there was great wealth. None of it belonged to anybody whom we ever knew. We could see it; we were working the land from which that wealth and privilege was generated. None of it ever belonged to anybody whom we ever knew—not to our whānau not to our hapū—we did not know. It really is difficult I think to describe—although people do try and some perhaps more eloquently than me will be able to—what it is like to grow up in a place where you belong in your bones you know that when you walk on the ground that ground is in your blood but for some reason you are totally disassociated from it. You have been dispossessed from it. You can feel that dispossession in your life and you can see the effects of that dispossession but you cannot describe it. You cannot explain why you feel that way—you just know that there is this strange screen between you and the land that you belong to. In an environment like that and with the description of the dispossession of Rangitāne from their land you can see why it is so difficult to describe. There are no people who you can say did you wrong. You cannot say this person or that person hurt your whānau or took this from you. You cannot describe it in terms of warfare and violence because as we know in this case in particular and elsewhere around the country the dispossession occurred as a matter of law and a matter of economics and proved to us all that old adage that the pen truly is mightier than the sword. It was through the pen that half a million acres was taken from Rangitāne—half a million acres taken from this people over a long period of time with deal after deal and a little bit of trading here and a little bit of misinformation there all done over years and years and generations with the stroke of a pen. What it does then is it leaves those at the end of that in a world feeling like there is no place to stand. That is kind of what it feels like. So I am very pleased to stand here and support this settlement bill because I know how that feels to be so disassociated from this land that is being talked about tonight. We are disappointed that as has been said before it is reparation not compensation for the half a million acres taken. We are overwhelmed by the generosity of the iwi in accepting this settlement knowing how much was lost and how little is being returned. We are enormously proud of those who have fought for this settlement for decades to have some resolution of the loss that was felt. I do not want to speak for too long because we need to get the settlements done so that people can get on. But it is really important that perhaps after this the people of Manawatū—of Palmerston North and all the surrounding rural towns in the area—really get to understand the settlement and the history of the settlement so they understand the ground that they are standing on. That might make it easier for the kids like me in the future who will really truly believe that they belong there; really truly understand that this is the land that they belong to and feel that they truly have a place to stand. Kia ora koutou.