Whaitiri Meka: Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Ngā Punawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16650. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou ngā mema o te Whare nei. It gives me privilege and honour to stand and rise in support of the second reading of the Ngā Pūnawai o Te Tokotoru Claims Settlement Bill. As Kirira outlined it is an omnibus bill that seeks to give effect to the deeds of settlement signed by the Crown and the three Te Arawa iwi. I take this opportunity to mihi to Ngāti Rangiteaorere Ngāti Rangiwewehi and Tapuika as parties to this bill. The purpose is a final settlement of their historic Treaty of Waitangi claims. The bill sets out the cultural and commercial redress for each iwi and records the acknowledgments and apologies offered by the Crown to all three iwi. In addition there is a statutory pardon for Ngāti Rangiwewehi tipuna Kereopa Te Rau and I would like to come back and talk a bit more about this rangatira. Ngāti Rangiwewehi Ngāti Rangiteaorere and Tapuika have a combined population of approximately 2500 members and the various areas of interest of these three iwi cover Te Puke and the Rotorua area including Te Ngāe.Every claims settlement bill has unique aspects about it. I mentioned in my introduction the pardoning in this bill of Kereopa Te Rau. I want to take a moment because in my own research on Kereopa I wanted to explore who this man Kereopa Te Rau was. So I undertook a bit of research and I would like to take this opportunity to put on record what I uncovered. Can I preface that before talking about this particular tipuna by acknowledging that each iwi and each hapū will have their own version of this tipuna. So I am going to put on record this particular tipuna as accorded by the biography written by Steven Oliver in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography volume 1 in 1990.Kereopa Te Rau was one of the five original disciples of Te Ua Haumene the founder of the Pai Mārire faith. He was a member of Ngāti Rangiwewehi of Te Arawa. The date and place of his birth are not known nor are the names of his parents. Sometime in the 1840s he was baptised by the Catholic missionary—and I apologise if I get this pronunciation wrong—Father Euloge Reignier and he took the name Kereopa. He is believed to have served as a policeman in Auckland in the 1850s. In the early 1860s he fought in the Māori King’s forces in the Waikato. His wife and two daughters are thought to have been killed in Rangiaowhia near Te Awamutu when it was attacked by Government forces on 21 February 1864. The following day he was at Hairini a defensive position just west of Rangiaowhia where he saw his sister killed.After the defeat of the Māori King movement forces in mid-1864 Kereopa joined the new religion of Te Ua Haumene. In December 1864 Te Ua instructed Kereopa and Pātara Raukatauri to go as emissaries to the tribes of the East Coast. They were told to preach the Pai Mārire faith in the districts they passed through to go in peace and to not interfere with Pākehā. Kereopa however demanded that a European be given up to him at Ōtipa a settlement on the lower Rangitaiki River and that a Catholic priest be handed over at Whakatāne. These requests were refused but at Ōpōtiki the missionary C S Völkner was seized and ritually killed on 2 March 1865. Völkner was hanged from a willow tree near his church by members of his own congregation.Kereopa was widely believed to have instigated the killing of Völkner. Although he had agreed to it in fact he did not take part in the actual hanging and cannot be held responsible. The arrival of the Pai Mārire party at Ōpōtiki precipitated the tragedy but there were complex reasons for Völkner’s death. Principal amongst these was Te Whakatōhea’s anger at the missionary for his actions in spying for the Government. In returning to Ōpōtiki at the time Völkner had disregarded the explicit warnings of Te Whakatōhea. Kereopa himself may have sought to avenge the deaths of members of his family at Hairini and at Rangiaowhia a plan of which Völkner had sent to Governor George Grey.After the killing of Völkner Kereopa with his party of Pai Mārire followers went on to Gisborne and to the Urewera where he preached the Pai Mārire faith among Tūhoe. In May 1865 he attempted to travel to the Waikato to preach to the Kingite tribes but was prevented from reaching the Kaingaroa Plains by a force of Ngāti Manawa and Ngāti Rangitihi. After a long siege Ngāti Manawa and Ngāti Rangitihi abandoned their defences at Te Tāpiri and Ōkupu in the western Urewera. But Kereopa was forced to turn back when a relief party of Te Arawa led by W J Mair arrived. He then returned to Ōpōtiki but was driven from there by Government troops and fled into the Urewera.Kereopa had much mana in the eyes of Tūhoe as the bearer of the Pai Mārire faith to that tribe and thus obtained their protection. The dense bush of the Urewera mountains also offered him protection from his pursuers as it later would for Te Kooti. Martial law had been declared in Ōpōtiki and Whakatāne districts after the killing of Völkner and a reward was offered for the capture of those responsible. Kereopa concealed himself at Te Rōau on a densely wooded hillside Te Miromiro at Ōhaua-te-Rangi a Ngāti Rongo settlement north of Ruatāhuna. Te Rōau had never been occupied and it commanded an excellent view of anyone approaching. There Kereopa was able to elude his pursuers for the next 5 years.From mid-1868 the Ringatū faith of Te Kooti gained popularity among Tūhoe and the influence of Pai Mārire correspondingly faded. The reverence in which Tūhoe held Kereopa also diminished but Tūhoe did not disclose his whereabouts. Over the next 3 years however the people of the Urewera were weakened and their land devastated by the Government’s relentless pursuit of Te Kooti and the remaining Hauhau leaders. Government troops including a Ngati Porou contingent led by Rōpata Wahawaha embarked on several campaigns between May 1869 and early 1872 in which Tūhoe pā were plundered crops destroyed and people killed.On 22 December 1871 Kereopa stood trial at the Supreme Court at Napier for the murder of Völkner. There was no direct proof of his responsibility for the killing but a European witness Samuel Levy testified that he had seen Kereopa among those who escorted Völkner to the willow tree. On the basis of his evidence Kereopa was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. William Colenso appealed unsuccessfully for clemency on the ground that the crime had already been punished by execution and land confiscation. Kereopa was hanged on 5 January 1872 in Napier.This is one of the tragic stories of Treaty settlements and breaches in this country and I wanted particularly to acknowledge in this settlement the pardon of Kereopa Te Rau. I join this side of this House in commending the work of the Māori Affairs Committee and the submissions that were presented and join with all in supporting this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.