Delahunty Catherine: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5457. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. He mihi nui ki te Waitaha iwi katoa. Tena koutou. I rise with great humility to speak on something so painful so historic and so important to the rohe from which these people come. Just to explain to them perhaps the reason that I as a Pakeha stand here it is that as te Tiriti spokesperson from a Pakeha perspective what I heard this morning and what I have heard continually is that it is not just about Maori; it is about the Treaty. In Te Tiriti o Waitangi the biggest responsibility the Greens believe is on the Kawanatanga which covers Pakeha. If we are to stand with honour and justice in this country we have to acknowledge our part not only in history but also in any future settlements. How well this is done affects us our honour as a people as well. So I am very pleased to acknowledge this ancient iwi from a beautiful rohe. 
 Not long ago 3 days ago I was in that area with those mountains to the sea which is a critical korero in that area. It is a beautiful area. It is hugely developed because it is fertile because it is rich and because there are wonderful streams running out of the beautiful forested hills and that is why in the past all of this took place. It was not just dastardly deeds without a context; it was dastardly deeds because they wanted the land. They wanted the land and Waitaha were in the way. I think it is really important to acknowledge that the tangata whenua did not go through this process this scorched earth destruction of their culture both through the law and through the gun because there were just bad individuals who were greedy. It was about a systemic colonisation that has taken away the very mana and rangatiratanga of those people of those times which now we are trying to rebuild in some form. I would just like to acknowledge that the people who drive this are the people of Waitaha. We as a country have reason to be grateful to them because if we can learn their story then we are going to be better able to live up to our responsibilities under te Tiriti.  
I read with great interest—I would have loved to be on the Maori Affairs Committee—some of the historical stories of this area and of what took place. It is really really important that we all acknowledge Hakaraia Mahika and acknowledge that even today freedom fighters are called insurgents as he was called and that he and the people who fought with him were defined as rebels for standing up for their fundamental right to defend their rohe and their fundamental right to their self-determination and to fight for their very survival at a time when the Crown was hell-bent on getting this rich and fertile land and handing it over to the settlers. What we saw was a series of events leading to a massive raupatu in Tauranga. As the Minister said none of it can ever be put together as it was. If you look at that area you will see that it is incredibly developed now on the plains but the hills and the rivers are still there. As someone from Waitaha said to me recently it is about a renaissance of a people from the rivers from the mountains down to the sea. So irrespective of everything that has taken place this is a great day to begin a renaissance for those people. 
As others have said the story of Hakaraia Mahika needs to be told and it is really great to see the resources being applied to that through the deed of settlement and the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill. Obviously this story needs to be understood by everyone and particularly I would say by my culture in the Bay of Plenty because we have not been renowned in that area for a recognition of tangata whenua let alone a recognition of our Treaty responsibilities. So we have a duty to learn that story and I think this resource will help everybody realise the mana of Hakaraia Mahika and others involved in standing up for what is right for being not those ethnically cleansed insurgents in modern parlance—for being not rebels but the people of the place with a right to stand. It was very powerful to read that Hakaraia died at Waioeka wrapped in the Kingitanga flag that was gifted to him by Tawhiao and that he was standing with Te Kooti who had also been vilified and his descendants were also vilified. His descendants again through some of the Treaty settlements have asserted their mana and the rangatiratanga of their tupuna. So there is another name that must be known by all and that is where this settlement makes a very useful contribution to that. 
It is also interesting to note the role—as well as the role of the gun which was liberally used against the people—of the Native Land Court as others have said. It was the icing on the cake and it was again not some kind of random accident of law whereby the Crown thought it was doing the right thing but made a few mistakes. The Native Land Court was a deliberate strategy to create individualised title because in the face of the strength of the collective cultures of tangata whenua there had to be a way to get that land and to break those collectives. If you read some of the dialogue of the day they talk about Maori as communists—this dreadful collectivity that had to be broken. The real driving force again was: “How do we get the land? If these people stand together collectively in their ownership and refuse to sell it and if we cannot kill them all then we are going to have to find another mechanism.” So that mechanism was the Maori Land Court. That land court in this area was very successful at individualising title which is the beginning of the destruction of unity alongside all the violence that was used. It is really important to see in this bill the apology and also the resources committed to places like Hei Marae. Hei Marae is a very significant tupuna in the area and a very significant part of the Waitaha story. Also there is the recognition of the awa because those beautiful streams that come out of those mountains are vital to the well-being of the communities. In fact the peoples in the area Pakeha and Maori rely on those streams for water and the integrity of those streams. It is very important that the tangata whenua who have mana and acknowledgment have acknowledgment of their statutory responsibility and rights over those streams so that they are not further polluted in any way. 
It is great to see that the conservation authorities will have to have recognition of the values of Waitaha. It was described to me by somebody from there as a framework for renaissance and an assertion of the vision of integrity cultural and environmental from the mountains to the sea. So let us hope that everybody who is in authority in local government and national government recognises that that framework of values will benefit all of us. It is a framework of values that not only will uphold the future of the descendants of Hakaraia but also will uphold the well-being and environmental integrity and the cultural richness of the Bay of Plenty. So there is much in this not only for the people but also for the rest of us to acknowledge. I mean it saddens me that the land is gone—so much of the land—and there is so little to give back but at the same time the cultural redress is very significant. The educational endowment is very positive. The historical research will be excellent. 
 I also note interesting issues around the protocols which I agree must never be forgotten around taonga tuturu and around things like minerals. I recently met some Waitaha people at a meeting around Muir’s Reef where they are proposing to mine and where the Waitaha people asserted very strongly that they have a critical relationship in this area and that anyone wanting to mine needs to talk to them and acknowledge that they have another vision of the integrity of their place the integrity of water and that relationship between the mountains and the sea. 
So I commend the Waitaha people for their work recognising this is a stepping stone and a renaissance and hearing from people in the area that they acknowledge both Michael Cullen and Chris Finlayson for their sustained work on this issue because this huge loss can be partially restored only if we all remember and if we all learn those stories. I commend Alistair Reese’s thesis talking about Pakeha ignorance because if we do not admit it we cannot learn. We have to admit what we do not know. We have to take on these challenges. This settlement with its resources committing to cultural redress must be adopted and embraced by us so that forgetting which is a Pakeha cultural habit—forgetting—will not be allowed in this rohe. Waitaha tuturu I wish them all the best in their process of this bill through the House. Kia ora tatou.