Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou Te Whare Pāremata he mihi nui ki a Te Atiawa whānui ki Te Atiawa Te Kotahitanga ki te whānau katoa. [Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Acknowledgments to you of the House and a huge one to Te Atiawa at large the Kotahitanga and the entire family.]I would just like to stand and acknowledge the manuhiri who have come the importance of this day and the importance of what we are in the process of doing. I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and the work of the Māori Affairs Committee on this important day. I am standing here for the first time on this bill although this is its second reading. As the previous speaker Marama Fox said I also feel a weight—the weight of history that comes from what happened in Te Atiawa and what that means to our nation. The shame I feel that so many people for so long have not understood the significance of what happened in Taranaki in Te Atiawa as the beginning of the total dispossession of tangata whenua across the motu—when the colonial forces decided to take the land. So I think it is very important for us to acknowledge today the weight of history the importance of trying to do better and in many ways to express to Te Atiawa that Parliament may not yet have grown up but you grew up a long time ago—you had no choice. We need to honour that. We need to honour your effort and respond to your effort with equal respect.I just want to talk also about the way in which war perpetual leases and other mechanisms have been tools of alienation of land in Te Atiawa rohe and how profoundly devious as well as direct the process of colonisation is. I am using the word is" because I do not actually think it is over. I think this is a positive step in the right direction—a controversial and positive and difficult step in the right direction—but it is not over. The Green Party always stands to pay respect to the bill—we will be supporting it—but we also stand to pay respect to the fact that Te Tiriti o Waitangi which was signed by Te Atiawa tupuna does not finish. It cannot be full and final; it must be an ongoing relationship. It must be an ongoing dialogue. It does not end this day. I believe and the Green Party believes that we would always stand here to hear more from Te Atiawa from the hapū katoa about these issues. It is not over for us because we stand for Te Tiriti and that is about a permanent ongoing negotiated relationship based on justice.I would like to also acknowledge that part of the loss is in the 20th century—the 1944 Act where the Crown attempted to say that it had compensated and recognised Te Atiawa without the consent of Te Atiawa. That is what I meant by devious: the ongoing pretence that things have been settled in the past right through the 20th century.I acknowledge too that it is not only the physical loss to the people of their whenua but also the pollution issues that have affected Te Atiawa. The Waitara River that has been treated like a drain by a number of industries and by the sewage of the communities—this food source this taonga that leads out to a food basket and the struggle that there has been the intergenerational struggle to clean up that river. The relationship that Te Atiawa has with the coast and their connection to Ngā Motu is acknowledged in the settlement—yet the Dow Chemical Co. polluted that community polluted that area with a toxic product that was sprayed over Vietnamese people that was generated in Taranaki and where the sick people are still affected and the environment is still affected. I want to acknowledge Te Atiawa's burden that they have received through no fault of their own from the abuse of land the abuse of the colonisation process and then the abuse of the environment which they cannot separate themselves from and would not wish to.This is not an uncontroversial settlement and hapū such as Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua are expressing concerns. Unfortunately when the Crown dictates the terms it puts iwi in a tight box about who is a large natural grouping—who gets heard who does not—and I acknowledge the best efforts of everyone and the ongoing issues.Last night I had the privilege of speaking on the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill the local bill and as others have said our support for it to go to select committee is extremely constrained. We will not be guaranteeing any further support because that local bill is not a Treaty settlement but it deals with Te Tiriti issues and in many ways we do not believe that that bill has got there. There are too many voices not heard in that bill. We acknowledge that Te Atiawa whom we have been seeking advice from on this were prepared to allow it go ahead but they acknowledged that there were flaws and there are. Waitara is symbolic in a way of the deeply flawed nature of trying to fix a mess created by my culture and benefited from—still benefiting still doing well. Great! Fantastic! But that perpetual lease issue with the Pekapeka Block is a deep stain and I would love to see a healing through that process that was actually about the generosity of my culture and not just the generosity of tangata whenua. I would love to see Pākehā katoa support Taranaki Pākehā to stand up and say that these resources need to go directly back to the people. We need to find a way and that local bill does not do that.However this bill that we are here to talk about has many good aspects to it and it shows that incredible work has been done. But I do want to touch on an issue raised by my colleague Marama Fox about the first right of refusal or right of first refusal—the more I learn about it the more fascinated I get. In reference to the leasehold land in Taranaki it was offered to Te Atiawa for $23 million. I always find it curious if someone has something stolen and then they have to buy it back: $23 million is an interesting response to a thieving—which may be a rude word but I think we need to speak truth to power every day about what has happened in this country. Especially in the context—and here I want to mihi to Dr Leonie Pīhama—of the Karori campus debacle whereby the Crown in 2014 gave the university the right to the whenua that was Te Atiawa's for 10 bucks—in 2014. How does that work? And then they can sell it for millions of bucks. So there is good work going on here in this bill but still the iwi have this offer that they cannot afford—23 million bucks—because when you have been robbed you often do not have a lot. And then there is the Karori campus—ten bucks and a few blankets. It is—Marama Fox: Criminal.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Well it is contradictory to the stated aspirations of this House that these things are happening in the 21st century. It is a bit like my bill last night the Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Maōri Land) Amendment Bill that was voted down by the Government—no more Māori land confiscation. People were saying it is historic; I am interested in history and the way that history is in the present and I am interested in the fact that this bill shows deep generosity deep commitment to dialogue and deep kindness.I would like to acknowledge that when we walked from New Plymouth—and I only walked the last day of the peace walk to Parihaka with Mayor Andrew Judd—every step was an opportunity to learn about the iwi katoa of the area: of Te Atiawa who participated in the support of Parihaka and the suffering that they paid for it. There are people who disappeared and we still do not know what happened to them because they were taken south and never seen again. Just finally I need to say that that story needs to be taught to every single child in this country not as an interesting historical artefact but as a passionate call for justice and a recognition of what tangata whenua truly offer this country which is peace leadership which is justice leadership and that the past is in front of us.Ngā mihi ki a Te Atiawa tēnā koutou katoa.[Congratulations to Te Atiawa and my appreciation to you all.]"