Street Maryan: Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Street Maryan: Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
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Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to speak in the Committee stage of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. Although I am more familiar with the members of Ngati Apa who reside in Te Tau Ihu I am very familiar with the land and the territory that we are considering in this settlement bill which relates to the North Island parts of the Ngati Apa iwi. I will start by referring to the words of one of my colleagues in the first reading of this bill. Mita Ririnui detailed the background to this settlement. We have now rolled up this Committee stage all together into what I understand can be quite a wide-ranging debate and I would like to traverse some of the comments that Mita Ririnui made in the first reading. He said that the history is interesting. Ngati Apa entered into negotiations with the Crown during the late 1800s. He said: “Ngati Apa entered into a process which basically began with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi for a simple purpose: they encouraged settlement but at the same time they wanted to be recipients. They wanted to be in the position where they could benefit from much of the technology brought here by the settlers. So they entered into many discussions with Crown agents many of whom are mentioned in the preamble to this bill. Certainly they are mentioned in the historical account. But that did not happen. In fact Ngati Apa went through a process of being subjected to land confiscation and land acquisition to the point … where they were left with simply 1 percent of their original land holding. For them that had a tremendous impact. … It led to the undermining of their culture the loss of their language and the fragmentation of their whanau hapu and iwi to the extent that they did not participate in the development of the Rangitikei area. In fact they were what we might call onlookers.” 
I take those words from my colleague as a starting point for the detail of this settlement bill. Here we are finally after many many decades and many lives and deaths of tupuna from the Rangtikei area who will have been aware of this travesty from the moment of their birth until the moment of their death. They will have passed on the concerns and the grievance about the injustices to people who now carry the torch on their behalf. 
Another of the points that have been noticeable in this whole settlement process of the North Island Ngati Apa settlement has been the involvement of young people of young negotiators. Here we have something that I suppose represents some of the worst and some of the best of our Treaty of Waitangi history in New Zealand—some of the worst in that the land confiscation and deprivation of a living or a livelihood were amongst the worst of the crimes that the Crown committed against iwi. But we also have some of the best in that we have young people young leaders emerging in Ngati Apa who have been able to take this claim forward and to press for the kinds of redress that are now familiar to us in the Treaty settlement process. There is an apology and this is right. It is proper. There is cultural redress and that is right and proper. There is compensation and that is right and proper albeit probably nowhere near the dollar amount that could quite legitimately be claimed by Ngati Apa. There is finally the restoration of some parts of land and property Crown forest land which is part of this settlement. 
So we have all these elements here and in this Committee stage it is important to reflect on some of the words on the page. It is very clear to whom this bill refers and what the meaning of “Ngati Apa (North Island)” is. Those people are identified and are written into the legislation. There is provision for cultural redress in Part 2. The very purpose of the legislation at the outset is to record the acknowledgments and the apology offered by the Crown in a deed of settlement. Part 2 refers to the cultural redress but Part 3 provides for commercial redress which includes the transfer of settlement-licensed land and public access to the wahi tapu on that land. Clauses 7 and 8 record the acknowledgment and apology offered by the Crown to Ngati Apa. The text of that acknowledgment is written in full in the bill. The text of the apology is also written in full. I think those things can bear scrutiny and discussion in Committee. 
Nobody in this Chamber will disagree with the settlement legislation. Let us wait and see but I imagine that nobody will disagree with this. I do not want to labour points unnecessarily but it seems to me that we have another good example of settlement legislation that does deliver the things that are now absolute prerequisites. I look forward to the day when historical claims are settled they are over and that period of our history has been settled. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: I shall finish this contribution on the Committee stage of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill simply by referring to a couple of bits in the bill that often do not get the airplay they deserve. Before the dinner break I referred to the fact that the text of the acknowledgments by the Crown and the apology offered by the Crown are set out in the bill itself. It is worth referring to these because in the descriptive bits that preface the legal clauses of the bill the text of apology says this in clause 8: “(1) The Crown recognises the efforts and struggles of the ancestors of Ngati Apa (North Island) in pursuit of their claims for justice and redress from the Crown and makes this apology to Ngati Apa (North Island) and their descendants. (2) The Crown profoundly regrets and unreservedly apologises to Ngati Apa (North Island) for the breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles acknowledged above. (3) The Crown regrets and apologises for the cumulative effect of its actions and omissions over the generations to the present day which have had a detrimental impact on the traditional tribal structures of Ngati Apa (North Island) their access to customary resources and significant sites economic and social development and their physical cultural and spiritual wellbeing.” 
These are the clauses that matter together with the cultural redress the compensation and the return of lands. These are the things that cement in our future going forward. Thank you Mr Chairperson.