Mapp Wayne: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:21933] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 All I can say is that I hope the previous member is proud of that speech because it will be his valedictory. That is the reality of it. The member knows that and I know that because I know literally hundreds of people in Tamaki Makaurau who will be voting against that member. That is the reality of it. 
Darren Hughes 
: Name them. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Most of my relatives actually. The third reading is the opportunity to give voters powerful symbolic value. National is voting against this legislation because we are expressing our deep concern about the trend in these settlements. Members should look at schedule 12 of this bill. I have been examining a number of settlements that over time have ramped up if you will the inclusion of references to spiritual values beliefs ideas and so forth. Frankly I have never read anything like schedule 12 of this bill in any other legislation. Just a month ago we were debating the Tuwharetoa legislation. I raised my concerns at that point about some inclusions in that legislation. They amounted to maybe one particular line. But this bill has pages of arcane references to all sorts of beliefs ideas and values that have as other members in this House have said today no place at all in our law and we debase our law if we make those references. So it is right in a third reading speech to express our deep concern about that. 
A month ago the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Mr Mark Burton said that the Government was going to look at this issue. He was very clear that it was an error to include those kinds of reference in legislation and that the Government would re-examine the issue. What do we have instead? Not the same but more of it—more intensified and deeper references. Frankly that serves only to bring views and values into disrepute. That is the real problem is it not? The Government does not understand why this nation has secular values at the heart of its belief system. The issue is about respecting everyone’s belief. Mr Murray Smith acknowledged that particular point in his contribution. How can one do that if one elevates one particular belief above all others by putting it into law? There was not even just a general reference to it in this bill but page after page of detailed references to the microcosms of belief. That is simply wrong in principle so National is using its third reading vote to record its deep displeasure about that inclusion which goes completely contrary to what Mr Burton said just a month ago when he said the Government was going to re-examine the issue. It has not done so. The Government has in fact made the situation worse. 
I also wish to refer to another issue which is the way that we record our history. I think we are falling into error there as well. We are getting a very distorted view of our history which can only do damage to race relations. That is what I suggest to members on the Government side of the House. There is a distorted view that says that the Crown is completely wrong and Maori are completely right and an abject apology then flows from that when people know the history is actually different from that view. Civil war—because that is what it was—has a much more complex origin than this deed of settlement records. We are damaging people’s understanding of the history. We lack the honesty to take an approach that avoids doing that. I suggest that when we undertake these settlements we take a more critical analysis that enables the recording of history to more properly reflect the nuance of what occurred back at that time. 
Those are two profound points. National is putting them on the record because our approach to settlements will be different in the future. It was different in the past. National Governments did not make the kinds of references to beliefs and values that the current Government has done—and the Government is intensifying them. National will take a more measured and considered approach that respects all the beliefs of this nation; it will not ask that beliefs be put into law. When I heard the Minister say in his opening speech that the references were put into this bill at the request of the claimants all I can say is that that Government misunderstands the role of the House. We are not here as supplicants; we are here to make the law of the land. When people ask for their beliefs to be put into the law frankly we should say to them that that is interesting and that they are entitled to their beliefs but that we as legislators for all New Zealanders decline to do as they ask. Labour in an obsequious way has simply agreed to include those references so we are using our third reading vote to record our displeasure about that. 
I conclude on this point. National acknowledges that wrongs were done in the past—Mr Brownlee acknowledged that wrongs were done in the past. We acknowledge that a settlement was required in this particular case. There is no question about that. We have no quibble with the vast majority of this settlement. If schedule 12 had not been there particularly in the way it is phrased in this instance—as opposed for instance to the phrasing of the Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill—we would have been able to come to a different view. But National is using this third reading vote to make a statement of intent for the future: that there will be a different way of doing settlements. We can stand proudly on our record on settlements actually because we have done many settlements in the past. National’s record is different from that of another party in this Parliament which votes only in one particular way—and we know which party that is. In this particular situation we are using our vote to indicate that there is a right way to do settlements which is in fact the way of the right and that there is a wrong way to do settlements which is the way of the failed left Labour Government.