Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker and tēnā tātou katoa ngā uri o Ngāti Rangitihi. It's a pleasure to rise today to speak as part of this debate on what is your bill and the bill that sets out and gives effect to the deed of settlement which represents so many years of negotiation between your rangatira and the Crown.You heard from my colleague Tāmati Coffey—who is the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee which will hear this bill—that it's been a long process just to get to this point. And I want to reflect on that before I make my substantive points about this bill. It has been a long process which your deed of settlement recognises began with petitions submissions and claims to seek redress for Treaty breaches from your tūpuna dating back to the 1860s. In 1878 Arama Karaka petitioned the Government for a rehearing of the Haehaenga block which was effectively confiscated by the Native Land Court and that was the first of the recorded petitions to the Crown which fell on deaf ears.In 1881 Niheta Kaipara petitioned the Crown regarding the unfair purchase of Kaingaroa and the Crown's response—it wasn't long and it included the phrase if the petitioners have any grievance which is very unlikely it is against their own people."In 1888 Takawheta Niheta and others asked for a rehearing in the Native Land Court of all of those blocks and the petitions went on. But it's the submission of Raureti Mokonuiārangi and 17 others of Ngāti Rangitihi to the Premier in 1899 which I want to focus on. That submission was about all of those injustices and more. In April 1899 Raureti petitioned the Minister of Native Affairs and lands on behalf of those in Ngāti Rangitihi who had not sold Ruawahia. They repeated their request for the succession of the Crown's purchase of Ruawahia and Ngāti Rangitihi noted that the block was under the provisions of the thermal springs Act 1881 meaning that the owners could not enter into any alienation of their land except with the Crown and that some owners had sold their interests to the Crown.I want to read for the House what that petition said because it is with this spirit that I'm so proud to stand here and say that what the Crown gave as a response to those petitioners and those submitters was wrong. They said "Be assured to us because our thoughts are permanently attached to the places where our ancestors and parents who have passed away from us lie (buried) it is the mountain of parting for all the Hapūs of the Arawa. We cannot stop a person from selling land seeing that the way is open for the Government to acquire land therefore we ask the Government to have some regard for us and that you two put a stop to this so that those who desire to sell may not be able to do so."That's the history which we look back to today and acknowledge the tīpuna of the people in the gallery who have been so engaged with the Crown who have come not just from those meetings and those organisations within their own community who oppose those sales of land they have reached out to the decision-makers here in Wellington to make their case so articulately about why the land is important and why it is foundational to their identity. It's an honour to be able to say that this bill goes some way to addressing those wrongs and establishes again the identity and the cultural connection in law which should have always been in place.Let me talk briefly about the Te Ariki isthmus. It's particularly important and I want to draw the House's attention to the effect of the deed of settlement between the Crown and Ngāti Rangitihi in relation to the Te Ariki isthmus because this puts a wrong right around public works takings which are particularly important for the Crown to acknowledge. In that case this land which links Lake Tarawera with Lake Rotomahana is approximately 100 acres. It was taken by the Crown in 1908 even though the Crown knew that it was a burial site and that it was of particular significance because of the pā built around the lakes. It was also taken under false pretence and it was never used in the way that the Crown intended it to be used at the time that it was taken.What's important to acknowledge here is that these land takings and findings in the Native Land Court were not just about private sales of land to settlers in the area and that the Crown was actively involved in confiscations for public works not for the reasons that they represented to those native landowners who had prior rights to that area. It's particularly important for the Crown to acknowledge those wrongs and to put those on the record very squarely as things that we would not accept again.The second point I'd like to make is about how Ngāti Rangitihi might move forward under this self-determined rangatiratanga and particularly around the Te Arawa mandate. The deed of settlement acknowledges that there is significant overlap between Ngāti Rangitihi and other Te Arawa groups and that the Treaty settlement negotiations between the Crown and other Te Arawa groups from 2003 to 2008 prompted Ngāti Rangitihi to challenge matters of mandate and redress in those negotiations that impacted upon them. The tradition of petitioning the Government and submitting here in Wellington continues. There were urgent Tribunal inquiries brought by Ngāti Rangitihi and there were ongoing negotiations but that advocacy by your leaders led to the assertion of customary interests in those areas.This is not a matter of tribal politics but it's supported by kōrero whakapapa and in well-documented evidence: things like the submission in 1891 of Mikaere Heretaunga who was a chief of Ngāti Rangitihi who said during the Ruawāhia hearing that "I know the boundaries of Rakeiao's and Apumoana's land. I live at Ngaharete on this block. I was born on it but have lived at Ōkataina and Ngaharete two places on it. The greater part of the lands of Rakeiao and Apumoana was outside this block. All this land was one and the forest given to Huikai had its boundary at Karamea and Waitangi outside this block. Ōkataina was awarded to the descendants of Rakeiao Ngāti Tarawhai descendants of Ngātoroirangi; they are not Tūhourangi. They are descendants of Rangitihi. Tūhourangi laid down the western side of this block as their tribal boundary. Ngāti Rangitihi are not a hapū of Tūhourangi but an independent tribe of chiefs. At the fight of Te Tumu Ngāti Rangitihi and Ngāti Tarawhai were not considered hapū of Tūhourangi. Rangitihi was the father of Tūhourangi." It's that point that I wish to make when we go into the Māori Affairs Committee and we consider who this settlement is for and why it's important for Ngāti Rangitihi to have acknowledged in cultural redress and in their statutory acknowledgments the importance of Ngāti Rangitihi mana as being separate from that of their cousins.The third point I want to make very briefly is—after making that point about their independence—the collectivism of Ngāti Rangitihi and it's something to be celebrated. It's evidenced in the Central North Island (CNI) Forests Iwi Collective settlement affectionately known as the "Treelords" deal following the Sealord deal. That settlement is unique in that it's eight iwi in the CNI but procedural problems have meant that Ngāti Rangitihi hasn't been able to assert their cultural interest in the forest as other iwi have. This settlement represents a significant step forward in that process and it's important because those cultural rights are significant. Statutory acknowledgments are meaningful and the value of those is immeasurable. They're things like the whenua rāhui over the lakes but they're also the acknowledgment of Ngāti Rangitihi's relationship with the central North Island forests going back many generations. That has practical implications for things like the discovery of taonga. The deed of settlement creates a protocol for Ngāti Rangitihi to claim those taonga which are found on public and private lands within lands that they have a cultural linkage with. And the effect of having those taonga—of not having to fight for those taonga to be returned to them—cannot be underplayed.So it has been a long process. And to those in the gallery I want to acknowledge each one of you for coming along today to see what is a historic step. Now that we go into the select committee I want all of you to feel welcomed and to feel a part of the process because it is your process particularly those young people who have come here today because for you this is the oranga of the iwi and this is your future. Tēnā tātou katoa ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou."