Henare Tau: Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Henare Tau: Rongowhakaata Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3731. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Te mea tuatahi ki aku rangatira kei a koutou e aku tuakana a Rongowhakaata tena koutou. Tena koutou i haere mai nei i tenei ra i rongo koutou ki nga korero o nga rangatira o tenei Whare. Ko ahau he uri no Wahinekino ko ahau a Rongowhakaata. No reira ka mihi au ki a koutou e aku whanaunga e aku tupuna e aku tuakana. 
[ 
Greetings Mr Speaker. The first thing is to acknowledge my chiefs. So to you my elder kin Rongowhakaata greetings to you collectively. I salute you who came here today. You have heard the sentiments expressed by representatives of this House. I am an offspring of Wahinekino I am a Rongowhakaata. So I acknowledge you my relatives ancestors and elder siblings 
.]  
I am a boy from “O-town” from 274 from Otara—born and bred. I always have been brought up to believe the great stories of Ngati Hine and Ngapuhi until one day I found out that the great carver of Te Hau ki Turanga—Raharuhi Rukupo—had a sister called Wahinekino who is my tupuna. As the story goes she married a Wynyard and had Robert Henry Wynyard who had Tau Henare No. 1 who was a member of this Parliament back in the day. He had Mita my grandfather who had Paul my father and I am the— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Kia ora Rongowhakaata! Tena koe! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —and the story goes on and on and on. I married a princess—and I will call her a princess—from up on the coast. As it transpires her ancestors her tupuna served time on the Chatham Islands with regard to what we have been talking about today. My son is now being tutored by a man they call “D man” a man they call Derek Lardelli up at Toihoukura. So the circle gets bigger and bigger and bigger in my relationship with those fine people from Rongowhakaata from Turanga. 
I want to acknowledge everything that the previous speakers have said but I want to continue my theme about the great and fantastic tapestry that is New Zealand that is Aotearoa and I want to if I may veer off for a couple of seconds. On 26 December 1890 Boxing Day in America something happened that most of us know about. That was the massacre at Wounded Knee where between 150 and 300 people were massacred. We know about these stories. We know about the Matawhero massacre but not many of our people know about the massacre at Ngatapa and the battle at Waerenga a Hika. 
To continue the theme that was raised by Brendan Horan and Louisa Wall about the education of New Zealand in terms of the Treaty settlements and those stories that make up the great tapestry of New Zealand these stories should be up there in the first chapter of that tapestry that is called New Zealand Aotearoa. It is not only about what happened it is also about what happened beforehand and also after. The stories of Rukupo the stories of how Te Hau ki Turanga was taken from that area and put into the Dominion Museum and about how it was cut to pieces to be able to fit into the Dominion Museum is another story. 
So I suppose what I am saying is that yes this is a solemn day it is a great day that we move to settle those grievances but on the other hand we should somewhere be able to learn about those things. I mean if you go on to YouTube and put in the words “Wounded Knee” hundreds of 10-minute videos exist about the story of Wounded Knee. They relate to the Oglala battle at Little Bighorn and so on and so forth. You get to learn the story. Yes you Mr Speaker. You get to learn about the story of the Lakota—the Sioux—and even General Custer himself. How come we cannot turn on YouTube and see our stories? How come we cannot learn about our stories regardless of whether it is Ngatapa or whether it is the stories of how John Hancock went down to Otago and found gold and his interesting stories? How come we cannot see those? 
In the context of what I started off with this morning about the tapestry the great and fantastic ins and outs and twists and turns of New Zealand Aotearoa this story is one that I hope—when somebody really does pull out all the stops on a story about our country New Zealand Aotearoa—is part of that great tapestry. 
In terms of the quantum you are never ever going to get what people rightly deserve. Even the South Canterbury Finance people are not going to get the return they think they should. I do commend the work of the Minister the officials and my mates on the Maori Affairs Committee but also the work that the House does in trying to push this through. At the end of the day when it comes to the House it is actually non-controversial. Yes there are issues about water rights and all sorts of things and we will deal with those maybe next week. But now we are dealing with a part of New Zealand’s story and putting the pieces of the jigsaw of that story into place so the next ones that come after us can read a fuller account and version of New Zealand’s story.