Mahuta Nanaia: Te Tau Ihu Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: Te Tau Ihu Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10806. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. E tāpiri ana aku mihi ki ngā iwi katoa o Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka-a-Māui. Tēnei ka mihi atu ki a koutou katoa tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou.[Thank you Mr Speaker. I add my acknowledgments to those accorded to all the tribes of the Prow of Māui’s Canoe. I salute you all greetings greetings and greetings to us.]It gives me great pleasure to be able to stand and continue to support the Treaty settlements process in a way that will ensure the safe passage of this bill the Te Tau Ihu Claims Settlement Bill through the Māori Affairs Committee and back into this House. I want to acknowledge our former colleague Parekura Horomia. This will be the first time that a settlement bill has gone through without his purview over any part of it and it is with some sense of sadness and I guess nostalgia that we will be having a less colourful debate on all parts of Treaty settlements without him here.I want to acknowledge actually the former Te Tai Tonga members of Parliament. In the gestation of getting to this point I am sure that their stewardship and support of the ambitions of the iwi within Te Tau Ihu helped get this bill a little bit further towards where it is today—namely Mahara Okeroa Rahui Katene and now Rino Tirikatene. It is a satisfying point in your own history and certainly as a member of Parliament representing a rohe when iwi are able to get their historical Treaty claims settled. We certainly understand more than many within this House that it is not only recognising the hurts of the past but restoring opportunity for the next generation.I want to acknowledge all those who are not here and who have sadly passed away and who contributed in some small or great way to pulling this settlement together. We have got eight iwi sitting amongst us and they will all know the names and they will all feel that they are here today. I too want to acknowledge the contribution of those who are not with us.Sitting in Parliament and reflecting on how the Treaty settlement process has evolved over time I have seen a fair few bills come through this House. It is with some regret that moving towards comprehensive claims and large natural groupings as a matter of pragmatism can in some part be the point of contention for many. But we have all moved on. Parliament has moved on in terms of improving the process. Iwi have seen to some extent the necessity of trying to ensure without losing their sense of unique identity within a large natural grouping process in a comprehensive claim that they can still get through the business.So with that said I note that members before me have pointed to the detail of the bill. The parliamentary process has evolved to the point where I believe all members in this House have understood the huge value New Zealand’s history gains in rewriting and recording the historical record. We have learnt through the select committee process the briefings that we receive and the submissions that we gain around the particular aspects of each settlement what it really means. We can never underestimate the importance of that public education role of members in this House to be able to then goback to their own rohe and be able to combat a lot of criticisms that always come towards Treaty settlements much in the same way that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Finlayson spoke about in terms of some of the negative narrative around the recent Tūhoe settlement.So in ensuring that this bill gets safe passage through the select committee process I look forward to being able to understand the more unique aspects of each of the eight iwi and their requests within the context of their settlement. I look forward to understanding in more detail advice from officials where they will maybe point out some of the more difficult aspects of trying to get to the point of agreement. I look forward to noting those things within the next debate in the second reading of the bill in the House so that people are mindful that there are still areas where we have to be ever-vigilant as parliamentarians and also on the other side of the ledger as iwi to ensure that the main clause of every settlement bill—that this “Act binds the Crown”—is upheld over time. To be an enduring settlement it is critically important that it is one that locks the relationship in to a longer view than just today just tomorrow but for the next generation.The settlements that have been reached within the context of the bill I think foreshadow a new era of opportunity and change. As I said the pillars of the settlement undertake to rewrite history to correct history and to restore a sense of natural justice to a history that was preserved within the context of each iwi but not well known within their wider community. I believe that the issues around statutory acknowledgments that are all contained in various aspects and ways for the eight iwi will ensure that when we walk this land people will see that there is a whole other sense of belonging that is affirmed to a whole other generation of New Zealanders. That will be a positive thing certainly for our kids and certainly for their kids and we would not get it without a settlement of this nature.In terms of the cultural redress often in Treaty settlements all the detail hidden within the cultural redress can reveal some very unique and innovative things. So again I believe that some of the most powerful opportunities for new things like new recognition of rights have actually been contained within the cultural redress area. Commercial redress—well a bird cannot fly without feathers without wings. The commercial redress will obviously be an opportunity for the iwi to have an economic base to be able to build from and to be able to grow from. But they go hand in hand. One does not go without the other. I know from reflecting on settlements within my own rohe that more and more another generation is trying to fuse together the cultural and the commercial redress in a way that holds integrity for the next generation.The rights of first refusal can be a fairly technical part of the bill. I have just been looking through it at how it hinges together. I know from our own experience back home that there are fish hooks in it. You can bet that before the select committee I will certainly be putting my eye over that to ensure that the right scrutiny that you deserve as iwi and the way in which this process is anticipated to work do work in the way we want them to.In terms of the Ka Mate attribution I again agree with the Minister. This is the attribution that will be a template at the front end of what the protection of intellectual property rights for Māori could start to look like. It will evolve over time but we have started somewhere. I want to acknowledge the work that has gone in to this from Toa Rangatira around the attribution. Depending on whether you lived in Kāwhia or came down on the heke there are two parts to the story. Because I can whakapapa to it I will tell the versions that I have heard. Those who stayed back in Kāwhia said thatTe Rauparaha was too big for his boots and he got booted out. Those who went on the heke said thatKāwhia was not big enough for them and they needed to move on.But really the here that I guess I wanted to connect to with my Toa Rangatira kinsmen was that there is a proud history of connection there which in some small way is recognised through the heke throughTe Rauparaha through the fact thatToa Rangatira has had footprints all the way down through the heke intoTe Tau Ihu. Again I want to ensure that from an intellectual property protection point of view we utilise this model of a template as an opportunity to see what more could be done in terms of the restoration of Māori knowledge and rights and intellectual property that could be furthered under theWai 262 report.I will not take up too much more time except to say that in the second reading of this bill I expect to report back more substantially on the detail of some of the considerations of the Māori Affairs Committee. I want to acknowledge the huge step forward that together the iwi of Te Tau Ihu have taken to reach this point. I also want to acknowledge the huge amount of effort that all the technical advisers for the iwi all the kaumātua all the people and all the negotiators put in to ensure that we can stand here today again reaffirming how proud we can be to live in a country that wants to try to set the record straight. Kia ora mai tātou.