Cunliffe David: Te Kawerau ā Maki Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Te Kawerau ā Maki Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:694;Page:574. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn):Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa rangatira mā ngā whaea ngā mana o Te Kawerau ā Maki. Mihi mai karanga mai aroha mai. Ngā mate ngā whare ngā mana whenua tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa. Te pō ka awatea whiti ao whiti ao whitiwhiti ao. Rātau ki a rātau tātau ki a tātau.[Greetings to you all leaders aunties and mandated ones of Te Kawerau ā Maki greetings. We accept your acknowledgments calls and fond greetings. We pay a tribute to the deaths and salute the meeting houses and mandated ones; accolades salutations and commendations to you all. Night gives way to daylight then the sun rises to beckon in the dawn and then a very very enlightened world. Allow the dead to remain among the dead while we the living get on with the business that affect us.]We remember today those who have gone before and we recognise the spirits of those who join us in this House. It is a tragedy that Te Kawerau and all of us have lost Eru Thompson in just the last few days and we feel his presence hanging here in this House as his dream of the settlement of this claim is now realised.I wish to acknowledge others who have worked so hard for this settlement: Te Wārena Taua Hāriata Ewe Rewi Spraggon. I want to acknowledge Sir Bob Harvey and Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse. I want to acknowledge my west Auckland Labour colleagues: Phil Twyford who will shortly speak; his predecessor Chris Carter MP for Te Atatū; Lynne Pillay MP for Waitakere; Carmel Sepuloni; and of course the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt. Through our Labour whānui we mihi to you we recognise you we celebrate your mana whenua today through this albeit modest but entirely appropriate and historic settlement of redress and an apology by the Crown for its acts and omissions that have contributed to the situation of Te Kawerau today.Te Kawerau ā Maki is dear to our hearts but it is an iwi that has no marae—not even its own urupā in which to bury its dead. West Auckland Te Hēnga the Waitakeres are resonant of the history of this iwi—the caves at Karekare where its people sheltered from the raiding parties of the north. Those hills bear testimony to the spirits of Te Kawerau. For all of what has been done wrong—the selling of land without consultation the individualisation of collective title dispossession the alienation the ignorance of the Crown and the wilful neglect of mana whenua over the years—let us feel the pain of the iwi for this loss in acknowledging the depths of the Crown’s apology for it.The Crown is making redress by way of cultural recognition by way of the nine sites transferred—as is appropriate—to Te Kawerau and by way of financial redress principally through 86 percent of the Riverhead Forest being vested in a $6.5 million transfer and various other sites. It is important in that it gives an asset that will produce a rental and thus provide some self-sufficiency. The financial contribution to the marae is modest as other speakers have said and we will stand alongside Te Kawerau and mihi to them as they establish their home marae. I look forward to the day when we can join them in celebration to enter it.This is a historic day. Te Kawerau ā Maki is a much-loved part of the Waitakere community. I commend the Crown for its apology today and I commend and celebrate this Aotearoa New Zealand where we lead the world in providing albeit belated cultural redress and the restoration of a mana relationship between the Crown and ultimately all iwi.