te Heuheu Georgina: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
te Heuheu Georgina: Ngati Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20687] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 Mai Maketu ki Tongariro ki takuwhanau o Te Moana a Toi Te Huatahikua tae mai ki koneii te ranginei aku mihi ki a koutou. Ki taku tuahine kaha tuahine toa a Beverley e mihi kau atu ana ki topakari topuka tomaia. No reira tenatatou katoa. 
[ 
From Maketu to Tongariro to my family from the Bay of Plenty who have arrived here today my greetings and wishes to you. To my strong sister Beverley I acknowledge your strength your patience and your courage. Greetings to us all 
.] 
I am very proud to stand here today and contribute to the third reading debate on this settlement bill not least because the people who are the subjects of the settlement are my own relatives NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty. I am very pleased to acknowledge their presence and to stand and support this bill on behalf of the National Party. I am also proud when we come to third readings of settlement bills because I came into Parliament with the National Party under the leadership of Jim Bolger and Sir Douglas Graham. Their team at the time in 1994 decided to commit to a genuine settlement of treaty claims and Doug Graham as was his way—he was very competent and very good at this work—set about in quite a short space of time developing a treaty settlement framework that has stood the test of time and is still the framework under which this settlement comes before this House today. So I do want to acknowledge those past colleagues of the National Party and those in the National Party now for their foresight and for their commitment to put in train a process that allows tribes—iwi such as NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty who are here today—to put the past behind them and to move forward. 
To suffer confiscation at the hands of an authority that one might have expected would be one’s protector cannot be a happy event. Of course not all settlements are based on confiscation but this one was. I think that we today in the 21st century can only guess what that must have felt like at the time when a tribe or tribes were depending on Governments to protect them. Some of those confiscations occurred not far out from the signing of the treaty which promised that their lands and other resources would be protected and then they found out some short time later that that was not to be the case. 
I do not think that anybody can really understand the hurt and the burden of pain that must descend upon the generations and the difficulty that Maori have had in looking forward while they were carrying that burden. Happily today my relatives in the gallery will be able to put that hurt behind them hopefully and really begin the process of healing. The Minister has acknowledged as I also want to that this is a really really important thing that we members of Parliament are doing in this House this afternoon. For other New Zealanders who say: “Let’s hurry up can’t we get these things out of the way?” I point out that Maori claimants are the first people to want them out of the way. They are the ones carrying the burden. 
What other New Zealanders must understand and what they must also have a sense of is that these settlements are about injustices to their fellow countrymen and countrywomen. This is about injustice. From time to time we stand and say: “One law for all. Equality before the law.” but not until this sort of injustice is removed can a group feel that there is indeed equality before the law. That is something we must all remember. There is no equality before the law for groups who carry this kind of burden and this kind of injustice. 
As I said this is a good day for this Parliament. I hope that it is an even better day for NgatiTuwharetoa Bay of Plenty and a good day for New Zealand overall. I am proud of New Zealand. I am proud of New Zealanders because we in this country at least have shown that we are prepared to find a way to help put past grievances right. When we see on our television sets what happens in other countries we can only be grateful that generally speaking we are a fair-minded people and that if we show enough tolerance and patience we can get through this process and not only restore to ourselves all of us a measure of honour but also restore to the tribe their honour and allow them to exercise the mana they have been seeking to exercise all these years. 
Again—I keep repeating it but it is important to say it—this is a good day. Settlements are not an end to the matter; they are of course a beginning. But they do bring closure for the current generation enabling them hopefully to feel that in some way they are able to shake off what has happened to their tipuna in the past. Looking forward to the future I think these settlements are also about reconciliation. It is only when people start to feel equal that they can behave in an equal manner. Otherwise the notion of equality is just something floating in the wind. 
I expect that pretty soon Beverley who I know will not shuffle around getting dirt on her shoes will be up and doing the business. She along with the elders have driven this settlement. I am sure she already has developments in train and I wish her and certainly the tribe and all the elders much success and goodwill for their future. It is important for New Zealand children to understand that they live in a nation that can exercise fairness and tolerance and do the right thing and that can when called upon do great things and this is one of them. 
I say to the Minister that yes he certainly can acknowledge that this is the second—or is it the third—settlement. [ 
Interruption 
] OK. We certainly look forward to others occurring. Of course National is likely to be in Government pretty soon and as we have had such a lot of experience in the area I can only imagine that settlements will become more timely. Settlements should flow. Either way it is my view that it is incumbent on all MPs in this House to understand the nature of what is happening today to understand the importance of these settlements for the tribe concerned and to support them. No reira tena koutou tena koutou tenatatou katoa.