Jones Shane: Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Shane: Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10266] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
:  
Kia ora ano tatou. Ko te kupu tuatahi me tuku ki te whaea o tenei hoa o tatou katoa e noho nei i roto i to tatou Whare ara a Kahurangi Raiha Mahuta ko tana kohine tenei a Nanaia. He tika tonu me mihi tatou ki nga wahine pera rawa te ikeike i roto i te ao Maori ta te mea ka paupau haere tena reanga ki te matemate katahi tatou ka whakaaro mo nga tangata kua riro na ratou nga kaupapa penei i poipoi i to ratou wa na ratou i whakapau i to ratou kaha kia whakapumautia tetahi kaupapa e pai ai te ata noho o te Pakeha me te Maori i roto i te taiao i runga i te papa o te whenua. Na reira kia tau nga manaakitanga ki roto i tana whanau. Na reira e te tuahine tena koe. Tatou katoa i roto i tenei rangi i te wa i haere atu to tatou Minita mo nga Take Maori ki tawahi tamoko ai whakatairanga ai i tera o nga kirimana e ’hakapaohongia ana e ia ma te wa e titiro a tona wa nga kehua o tena kaupapa ka puta. Na reira ka nui tenei korero mo tenei wa ki to tatou reo Maori. Tena tatou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings once again to all of us. Firstly I acknowledge the mother of this colleague of all of us seated about our House: namely Lady Raiha Mahuta. This is her girl Nanaia. It is appropriate that we acknowledge women of that stature in Maoridom because it is not until that generation begin to die and diminish that we ponder the ones we have lost; the ones who nurtured matters like this one who expended their efforts and time on an enduring policy that will ensure that Pakeha and Maori co-exist harmoniously in the environment and on the land. Blessings upon her family and to you sister colleague. So to us all on the day when our Minister of Maori Affairs departed overseas to sign promote and proclaim the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the media time alone will tell what ghosts will emerge from that document. Enough for now in our Maori language and greetings to us all 
.] 
It is a pleasure to stand and speak on this bill. I have attended in our Maori language to some ceremonial words that carry the weight of affection that so many of us in this House have not only for Lady Raiha but for Sir Bob Mahuta who along with the Hon Matiu Rata Sir Graham Latimer and Sir Tipene O’Regan in the late 1980s took up the challenge and in very many important ways changed the course of our socio-political history. When someone of their ilk passes it brings lustre to us as parliamentarians to note their passing. It is not until decades have passed that we begin to study critically the contribution that different personalities make. Indeed on that side of the House was Mr Bolger and on this side of the House were Mr Lange and Mr Palmer so I think it is a fitting part of a parliamentary speech that we should acknowledge the contribution of those who are no longer with us. 
I cannot say the same about the leader of the ACT Party. The ACT Party today has disgraced itself in the very venal and ugly way that its leader in a fit of desperation sought to explain the reasons why his party do not like this bill. In a democratic House such as ours we are entitled to bring our differences forward but for him to demean the plume of Maoridom the Tainui people and describe their heritage their aspirations as hocus-pocus will come back to haunt that man when he stands for election in 2011. 
The fact that he has swept away the elected regional councillors in Canterbury is now a matter of history but he stands and continually lambastes this bill because it undermines accountability it undermines transparency whilst at the same time he has handed over 80 percent of $30 billion of assets to the shadowy stewardship of a group of people who will not be accountable to the public. They will be accountable to these largely unknown predominantly vague but vigorously profit-driven entities called council-controlled organisations. The gulf of credibility between what he says about this bill and what he is actually doing lays bare his approach to the most sensitive issues confronting us as society. 
This bill has legitimacy and the institution it is creating will be a creature of statute. The statute will enjoy legitimacy because it will command a majority of the support of this House the highest court in the land and the largest form of public domain institutional expression. To then go on and attack the structure as lacking legitimacy is not only shallow but a very destructive approach to take to these issues. But as I said Mr Hide has sown those seeds venal though they may be and they will come back to haunt him without a doubt. 
The farming community has raised an area of concern but the farming community is on shaky ground in relation to water quality. It has asked us as a society to buy into its approach that without regulation it is willing to mitigate or diminish the negative effects of farming on the water-based environment and by and large we have gone along with that. But the most recent report which caused embarrassment to Fonterra our largest single commercial entity in the country shows that any farmer attacking this model because of its focus and accent on cleaning up the Waikato River needs to go back and stick to the udder. The farmers have an enormously long way to go before they can regain credibility in my view as stewards of the water-based environment. 
It might be said that this bill could be an impost on the farming community. The farming community derived economic benefit from the use of the water—either the ability of the river and the water to absorb the waste that comes off farmland or the application of water on to their farmland. It is not really a free good because expenses and costs are associated with the interaction of the commercial activity called farming and the use of that water resource. I encourage those who have influence over the farming community to advise them that they should get in and support something like this because it is not designed to strip anyone’s rights. It is actually designed to future-proof the ability of the local community local firms and the broader Auckland and Waikato public to enjoy the benefits reflected in the Waikato River. 
The law as a consequence of this bill being passed will give status to concepts that we are familiar with on the marae and concepts that may very well test the analytical powers of the Environment Court or other consent agencies. But they are no different from concepts such as intrinsic value. They are no different from expressions such as inherent value. Environmentalism as reflected in the statute law of New Zealand today already gives standing to notions of aesthetic value intrinsic value and existence value. These are matters that already enjoy standing in the country’s jurisprudence. 
The fact that that jurisprudence might one day be augmented as a consequence of introducing notions of kaitiakitanga mauri mana awa and manu whenua ought to scare no one. All it shows is that the cultural mix that the law has to account for is alive and well. That cultural mix is not going to cause from our perspective of the House any detrimental impact on the daily lives of the people other than remind them that as we use resources future generations are calling on us not to destroy the carrying capacity of the resource to also meet their needs their interests and to enable them to live full and meaningful lives by having a rich interaction with the environment. 
That is what this bill does and it does it in such a way that it uplifts a group of New Zealanders the tangata whenua of Waikato-Tainui who have been marginalised for so long as a consequence of colonialism in the 1800s and 1900s and it gives them a place of status and standing. For it to be described as hocus-pocus or unbearable or as a burdensome attack on the economy is short-sighted and we look forward to supporting this bill. Kia ora tatou.