Turia Tariana: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turia Tariana: Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5449. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for Whanau Ora) 
 on behalf of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: I move  
That the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Maori Affairs Committee that the committee report finally to the House on or before 20 December 2012 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during the evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 188 190(a) and 191(1)(b) and (c). 
One of the w’akatauki of Waitaha expresses the full impact of the story behind this legislation: Ko Waitaha te iwi he tangata ngakaurua. Waitaha was once a powerful tribe but because of the loss of land they became fragmented and have never been able to unite again. This morning in this House we greet a new dawn for the people of Waitaha and with it the hope of a future in which they are truly able to enjoy the restoration of their mana in every sense of the word. So today we welcome all those who come to share the aspirations and the legacy that descend from their tupuna Hei and his son Waitaha. We acknowledge the breadth and depth of the rohe in which Waitaha are located from Waimapu to Mauao along the coastline to Maketu and inland to Otanewainuku. 
Waitaha kuia Hunehunga McCausland has called Waitaha the lost iwi referring to their loss of mana and the tendency for some to follow alternative tribal affiliations. In those words one glimpses the harrowing grief of a people dispossessed of almost all of their traditional lands to the point where the iwi nearly ceased to exist. That sense of aching loss is overlaid by a history of confiscation—raupatu—within Tauranga an action that the tupuna Hakaraia Mahika opposed. The Crown could not—would not—tolerate the challenge. It labelled Hakaraia a rebel and systematically initiated a process of punishment of the people from whom he was known to have come. So 145 years ago in January 1867 the Crown destroyed the houses crops and livestock of the people of Waitaha and ultimately took the life of Hakaraia. Using scorched earth tactics the Crown pursued Hakaraia to his death in 1870. Even then the punishment did not cease. The Crown withheld a large amount of land from Waitaha confiscating a massive 214000 acres of land around Tauranga including land in which Waitaha had customary interests. Although the Crown eventually accepted the ancestral claims of Waitaha to approximately 25000 acres in the confiscation district even then it withheld much of this in payment for the sin of Hakaraia. 
One of the great tragedies of this period of our national history is to realise that during the 1840s and 1850s Hakaraia a leader and prophet of his people preached peaceful engagement with Pakeha. The stigma of rebellion has been a heavy burden weighing over all of his descendants and indeed Waitaha. It is a stigma that this legislation suggests has diminished the mana of Waitaha and forced deep divisions among their own and between their neighbours. 
Out of that history then the Crown and Waitaha signed terms of negotiation and an agreement in principle in 2008. Exactly a year ago to the day the Crown and Waitaha signed a deed of settlement at Hei Marae. Now the story opens a new chapter a new beginning in which the Crown seeks to restore its own tarnished honour to mark the start of a stronger relationship with Waitaha. 
The story of Waitaha became even further complicated by the involvement of the Native Land Court which gradually but comprehensively converted customary title into individualised and permanent titles derived from the Crown. So by the end of the 19th century Waitaha had insufficient land and resources to sustain their tribe burdened by the systematic and merciless alienation of their own w’enua. It is an appalling history. 
In this settlement the Crown seeks to recognise the extent of the harm done by offering a formal apology and initiating redress both cultural and financial. One of the most important aspects of the action is the establishment of a $3 million education endowment fund in the name of Hakaraia Mahika a genuine effort to restore and redeem the legacy and the mana of a poropiti and rangatira of central importance to Waitaha. 
The bill recognises the process of vesting in Waitaha two urban cultural sites: a scenic reserve based on the maunga Otara Maungaruahine Pa Historic Reserve and land at Papamoa including important pa sites. Alongside this the settlement introduces an overlay classification Te Whakairinga Korero providing for Crown acknowledgment of Waitaha values and agreement on protection principles applying to two important mountain sites. A deed of recognition of special association of Waitaha has been agreed with five areas of conservation land among the ancestral mountains within the Waitaha rohe. There will be a statutory acknowledgment of the cultural historical spiritual and traditional association of Waitaha with 15 statutory areas including the peak of the maunga tupuna Otanewainuku beds of several watercourses including the Kaituna River and the coastal area between Mauao and Maketu. 
Letters to Ministers are included to encourage support for Maranga Waitaha to assist the social economic and cultural needs of Waitaha as well as letters of introduction to local authorities. Three ministerial protocols have been agreed relating to taonga tuturu conservation and Crown minerals. There is commercial redress as rights over property and $7.5 million - plus interest from agreement in principle to settlement. 
In the course of time this settlement will be known as a landmark for the future prosperity of these people. But the final aspect I want to focus on is the $1.3 million that is being provided for a full historical account of Waitaha and Hakaraia. In the course of preparing for this significant day I came across a thesis that was written by a Pakeha researcher Alistair Reese entitled  
Are You Listening? The Voice of Waitaha a Forgotten People 
. The thesis was predicated on the belief that most Pakeha who now inhabit the rohe of Waitaha are completely ignorant of the identity of the tangata w’enua. His view was that the impact of colonisation upon Maori was minimised by many Pakeha through a convenience of distance. Reese makes a very strong plea to all New Zealand to learn our history to share our stories and to reach out to understand the context that might otherwise keep us apart. 
To mediate this distance I want to share one of the messages of hope in this thesis that I believe the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill is a perfect opportunity to address. It can be seen as both a challenge and a cry: a challenge to listen and a cry to understand something of their story told through their history and their voice. Hopefully from the microcosm of Waitaha it is imagined that those who have the ears to hear will be able to extrapolate beyond to understand some of the aspirations of other Maori who not only seek redress for the past but also grapple to define a future based upon the dignity of restored identity as tangata w’enua the first people of the land. These aspirations require not only a renaissance of Maori vision but also an affirmation and the cooperation of all peoples. It is this affirmation that would possibly go some way to bringing healing and reconciliation to a country that is still displaying the wounds of the past and present division. 
Finally I want to recognise the key players in this legislation who have reached out to tell this story: the negotiation team of Waitaha Raupatu Trust; the governance entity Te Kapu o Waitaha; Tame McCausland who lodged the claims with the Waitangi Tribunal; and all those who have developed the claim and negotiated with the Crown and who have protected their waiata reserved their memories and treasured all that it is to be Waitaha. I acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations for his drive and for ensuring these stories be told. 
The people of Waitaha no longer wish to be known as the forgotten or the lost people. They have risen in the spirit of resilience and reconciliation to demand a better future. We now have the opportunity to listen and to learn. I commend the Waitaha Claims Settlement Bill to this House. Tena tatou katoa.