Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Mr Speaker. I rise as the member of Parliament for Coromandel an electoral constituency area that includes most of the rohe of Ngāti Tara Tokanui and it's an area that I travel through regularly have come to love and enjoy its particular nature its history and its beauty. But there are scars on that rohe there are scars on that land and there are scars that some of my colleagues across the Parliament this afternoon have clearly set out. I'm not going to go further on that matter because I think Tāmati Coffey Todd Muller and Paul Eagle have done a very good job in that regard.One of the slightly strange and perverse historical features of our Parliament is that every word is written down—every word that is spoken in this place is written down for the record and is kept for posterity and that's a good thing. Many of those words are wasted words in many respects. Many of those words and in too much of the work that we do in this place are aggressive are adversarial are petty in some ways and are partisan. But when it comes to pieces of legislation of this sort there is unanimity there is I hope a sense of trying inadequately we know—inadequately—but trying genuinely and sincerely to right some egregious wrongs.I hope that in years to come there won't just be a staple on a piece of paper in a filed document somewhere; I hope that in years to come when we're all long gone from this place there will be people yet to be born who will come and maybe look at the words that have been spoken in a debate like this and they will learn something. They will learn something about the process of Treaty settlements which were originally commenced a long time ago by Jim Bolger and Sir Doug Graham—highly criticised at the time highly contentious. But here we are all those years later still working our way through this process still trying to right wrongs still trying to educate people of my generation and other generations who were not taught the history who were not taught the background who were simply told that this is the way things were and that everything was fine and we know better than that now.From time to time—not recently I must confess—I have had an opportunity to cycle along the banks of the Ōhinemuri River. People who will know the Karangahake Gorge will know the road is on one side of the river and now the cycleway the Hauraki Rail Trail cycleway—it's one of the most ridden pieces of the cycleway in the country. It's beautiful and I can recommend it and can endorse recommendations for anyone who wants to go and have a very good cycle ride to go and do it. But as people cycle through that area I can't help but notice the physical scars on the land and I'm thinking particularly of the Victoria Battery that stands on the banksides there where you can still see the massive concrete cyanide tanks that not only leached but flushed cyanide into the river and polluted it to a point where it could not be fit for either human or animal consumption. That's very sad because those monuments that physical stuff are still there. If you go further up in to where the kilns were burning 24 hours a day seven days a week and burning massive massive quantities of native timber—literally just raked and pulled out from the hillsides and the hills around the Karangahake—and see those kilns there and the physical scars that are still there as you cycle through this as I say very peaceful tranquil part of the cycleway it's a confronting physical aspect of our collective history. Then more recently there was the draining of the wetlands and the impact that that has had on the land and the people who occupy it and sadly those who are no longer with us. So I want to join with others in this House in acknowledging what now has been a long journey and when we were debating the Ngāti Paoa and Ngāti Hei first reading pieces of legislation only a couple of weeks ago I reminded the House that the year 2011 is etched into my mind very clearly because that was the year that I was first selected to be a candidate for Parliament and then later in that year elected. People were saying to me right from that time early in 2011 Get ready the Treaty settlements are coming. The Hauraki Treaty collective settlement is coming. Get ready for it. It'll be six months away—get ready." and then every consecutive six months for the last 12 years people have been saying to me "It'll just be six months; it'll just be six months." Well here we are getting closer to what has been a very long six months where the people of Ngāti Tara Tokanui have been patient have been generous with their time and have been very understanding of a settlement process that is by no means adequate or appropriate in terms of the hurt and the payment and the suffering and the history that has taken place. But their generosity of spirit and their patience brings us to the point where we are today.We're a step closer to a formalisation of the process. We're a step closer at the end of this debate in a few minutes to the bill being voted on and then being sent to select committee where some of the outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved and tested and talked about will take place at select committee and that's a good process. Then we'll come back and have a second reading and then a third reading and then the bill will be passed to become part of the law of the land. That is I think appropriate: slow—interminably slow—but a process none the less.So in acknowledging people who in years to come may read some of the words that have been spoken here today I hope that this is another step along the way to a brighter better future—a more prosperous a more optimistic and a more united future for us all and those that will follow us. I commend this bill to the House."