Tanczos Nandor: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:423;Page:18549] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 Ngati Awa ka nui te mihi ki a koutou. First I wish to echo the comments of Jim Peters when he refers to the poor timetabling of this bill. It is unfortunate that the Maori Affairs Committee is not in Wellington and members are unable to speak to this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] As with members’ day yesterday where we saw the Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Labour senior whip just interrupted the speech of Mr Nandor Tanczos to suggest that the issue of the Maori Affairs Committee not being in Wellington today— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but I say to him that that is not a point of order. It is part of the debate and that is what is happening now. 
Gerry Brownlee 
:Your job is to keep order in the House to make sure the place does not disintegrate— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: This is not a point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
:Well here is my point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Well it had better be a point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
:I would ask you to require the Labour senior whip to stand up and apologise to Mr Tanczos for interrupting his speech particularly with a statement that was patently untrue. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I just say to the honourable member that I was distracted because what was actually happening was that there was an interjection between two members who do not have the floor one on my right and one on my left. I say to members that interjections are not permitted at all when they are directed at a member who does not have the floor. In this case neither member did. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: I thank Mr Brownlee for that clarification. Yesterday we saw a bill regarding the runanga of Ngati Awa being put through in members’ day as a member’s bill when it should have been a Government bill and it shows the lack of respect on behalf of the Crown with regard to this issue. We in the Greens think that that is unfortunate. 
We do support the bill. This settlement arises out of confiscations of land made by the Crown in order to punish Ngati Awa for alleged rebellions in the 1860s. Those alleged rebellions arose out of the participation of some Ngati Awa hapu in the Tairawhiti force that was intending to go to the Waikato to assist the iwi there as well as out of the retribution for the killing of four people in 1865. 
When the Crown executed arrest warrants in response to those killings the Crown’s force destroyed considerable property and laid waste to many pa within the rohe of Ngati Awa causing enormous damage to the hapu. Over 13 men were arrested under those warrants. All of them were imprisoned and two of them were executed. For generations Ngati Awa has carried the stigma of tangata hara as a result. 
 When the Waitangi Tribunal heard the case in the late 1990s the tribunal was clearly of the view that the confiscation of the lands of Ngati Awa was contrary to Te Tiriti o Waitangi that there was no rebellion to justify the confiscations and that the confiscations as effected were outside the law. 
About 245000 acres of land were confiscated in 1866 and eventually around 77000 acres were returned. But that land was returned to individuals contrary to tikanga Maori and inevitably those lands became susceptible to partition fragmentation and alienation because they were held in individual title and not by the collective from whom the lands were stolen. It is against that background of abuse that the settlement has occurred. 
In the select committee a number of concerns were raised. For example—and this has been referred to by previous speakers—the rate of participation for the ratification process was low in the settlement. But of course that is an issue for all settlements and the Hon Parekura Horomia referred to that as well. In our opinion the low participation rate arises directly out of the process that the Office of Treaty Settlements requires. 
What is desperately needed in this whole issue is a thorough review of the settlement process from the viewpoint of the claimants. It is the claimants who need to be given the opportunity to give direct advice to the Office of Treaty Settlements as to what it is they need from the office to ensure they get the most appropriate processes to meet the needs of the hapu involved. The Office of Treaty Settlements needs to give effect to that advice without excuse. It is a simple enough request which that office has steadfastly refused to accept. 
The Greens continue to be highly critical of a settlement process where the iwi who are the aggrieved party have no authority control or decision-making powers over the process. We understand that the necessary boundaries in a negotiation should be jointly negotiated if they are to be fair but in the settlement process that is simply not what happens. The Government sets its own policy and positions remains inflexible and offers iwi and hapu a “take it or leave it” approach. That is not fair negotiation. Justice cannot be properly achieved when the process is so fundamentally unjust. 
The Greens acknowledge that this settlement is the best that Ngati Awa could have secured under the current settlement policy and we congratulate Ngati Awa on pursuing some restitution—though it is through that demanding and unjust process. Despite our serious misgivings about the underlying nature of the settlement process and the long and difficult path involved in it we understand that the people of Ngati Awa are confident that for them this settlement provides some measure of rangatiratanga. Therefore we support this bill and we pay our respects to Ngati Awa: tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.