Turei Metiria: Ngati Mutunga Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Ngati Mutunga Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4505] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 E te manuhiri tuarangi nga kaumatua rangatira nga tungane nga tuakana koutou o Ngati Mutunga kua tae mai ki te tautoko i tenei ahiahi nau mai haere mai whakatau mai. 
[ 
To the visitors from afar to the chiefly elders brothers and older siblings to you of Ngati Mutunga who have arrived here this afternoon in support welcome welcome welcome. 
] 
The Green Party congratulates Ngati Mutunga on their settlement. Although we state regularly our objection to Government policy on the settlement process there is no doubt that extraordinary work and effort by the iwi has gone into the settlement and we acknowledge and applaud that work. Ngati Mutunga is one more of the eight Taranaki iwi to bring their settlement to the House. Their history is similarly one of dispossession and disenfranchisement at the hands of the New Zealand settler Government which—out of pure greed—unlawfully confiscated their lands and imprisoned their people. The confiscations were indiscriminate and the entirety of Ngati Mutunga’s rohe was stolen from them. The compensation process established to mitigate the thefts was never implemented. 
Ngati Mutunga rightly supported the acts of passive resistance organised by the prophets Te Whiti and Tohu Kakahi at Parihaka. The subsequent military invasion of Parihaka led to the destruction of homes; the confiscation of assets like stock; imprisonment; and the forced removal of some 1600 women men and children—Maori effectively made refugees in their own country. I would like members to just reflect on that for a moment with the indulgence of Ngati Mutunga who are here in the gallery today. 
One of the things that truly confounds me about modern-day Pakeha objections to the Treaty—and perhaps not just Pakeha objections if we consider the New Zealand First bill that came before the House last night—and to Maori struggles for recognition is that they are constructed entirely within a Pakeha experience of living in Aotearoa that has been comparatively benign. By saying that I mean that the settlement of New Zealand post-1840 has for the most part been without significant violence for its Pakeha inhabitants. It has been a peaceful process for those people because the violence committed in those early years of colonisation was done on behalf of the Pakeha settlers by a Government that had the resources to take extraordinary military action against tangata whenua. Most—although certainly not all—of the settlers and their descendants have been insulated from the impact of that military force and the subsequent violence and dispossession that occurred. 
For mana whenua of course it has been a completely different experience of living in this country. Who here has great-grandparents who—in this country in Aotearoa—were forcibly removed from their land at the point of a Government’s gun? Ngati Mutunga—the Taranaki iwi at least—could all put up their hands in answer to that question. Who here has grandparents who in this country had to stand on the side of the road surrounded by their belongings while they watched bulldozers smash through their houses because their land had been taken under the a public works Act? Anyone from Ngati Turangitukua could put up their hands in answer to that. Who here has parents who were punished in a New Zealand school for speaking their own language—the language indigenous to this culture and this country? I could put up my hand to having had that experience. Those are not the experiences of Pakeha in this country but they are the lived real experiences reflected on every day by Maori by tangata whenua. 
It is the relatively peaceful and benign settlement of this country that distorts what has been a brutal history for the tangata whenua and the mana whenua of our communities. We cannot undo those experiences and we certainly do not want to recreate those experiences for those who have not suffered them but we must find the means by which to bring real recognition and make restitution for those experiences. 
That requires us to take our disapproval of past events—which we have heard expressed here today and will no doubt hear again when similar bills come up—to our analysis of current-day attitudes and legislative action because if we do not apply that analysis everything that is said in this House about those historical roles or that disapproval is meaningless and—what is worse—hypocritical. To that end I think that we should all Maori and Pakeha alike be enormously grateful to Ngati Mutunga and to all the other hapu and iwi who bring their settlements to us. They provide us with a window to the lived experience of war forced removal unjust imprisonment and even murder—real experiences of whole communities only a few generations old. I do not expect every member of Parliament to understand this but we have to find a mechanism for a just process for the restitution of these claims that is based on the Treaty text and the full promises it contains because our only alternative to doing that is to have a society founded on war and destruction. 
Surely we should celebrate the fact that we are in the globally enviable position of having a choice between either a nation built on bloodshed or a nation built on an agreement fully honoured understood and implemented. Yes it does require us to face very unsavoury and frightening facts. For example although most people would agree that the actions concerning the sacking of Parihaka were unjust many will still deny that it was racist even though the purpose of that sacking and thefts was to destroy the mana whenua and their tikanga. Knowing our history is a first critical step towards finding that process and this settlement is part of doing that. 
I think that we must also remember that Maori—the hapu that have come here today and who will no doubt come in the future—are extremely generous in accepting these settlements. Like Taranaki iwi before them Ngati Mutunga have agreed to accept less than they would otherwise be entitled to for the significant loss they have suffered. They have agreed to cooperate with the Government and within a Government process that does not recognise their tikanga but that requires them to operate within a Pakeha framework. Let us not forget that only about 1 percent of the value of compensation is paid in Treaty settlements and that any initiatives designed to lift Maori to any kind of equal footing with the rest of the community are considered by many politicians in this House to be far too generous. 
The Greens have in the past been very clear that but for the work of the iwi in concluding these settlements and the costs in time money and people this awful process requires we would vote against settlements. But we will not; we will support them. We remain in complete opposition to a process by which the Government dictates the way in which things should be done in the tangata whenua domain and in complete opposition to a process by which the wronged party is expected to submit to terms imposed by the wrongdoer. That method of dealing with injustices of the past cannot possibly hope to achieve a real resolution. I have said it before and I will say it again: an unfair process for the resolution of wrongs does not have any durability. Our own history which we can reflect on every day proves that and it is about time that the Government and parliamentarians learnt from those mistakes. If that lesson could be learnt there would be a far healthier relationship with Maori and with the community overall in this country but as it stands I believe that that relationship remains a dysfunctional and abusive one. 
The Green Party looks forward to hearing the concerns and views of Ngati Mutunga and those concerned with the settlement during the select committee process. We would like again to congratulate them on their perseverance and commitment to achieving a settlement for the benefit of their people. Kia ora.