Clendon David: Ngati Pahauwera Treaty Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
Clendon David: Ngati Pahauwera Treaty Claims Settlement Bill — Third Reading 
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DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kei te mihi nui ki a koutou e te manuhiri nga hapu katoa o Ngati Pahauwera tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Speaker. To you the visitors and all of you of Ngati Pahauwera I acknowledge you greatly. Salutations. 
] 
I am pleased to stand on behalf of the Greens to express our support for the Ngati Pahauwera Treaty Claims Settlement Bill. Contrary to what my esteemed colleague has just said we are by no means interested in delaying the progress of any settlement legislation but we are entirely unwilling to sacrifice fairness or justice for speed. That is our position and I thank the member for giving me an opportunity to restate it. 
We acknowledge the very long road the very considerable hardship and loss that have been suffered by Ngati Pahauwera over many many years. We acknowledge their leaders past and present whose work whose determination and whose perseverance have brought them to this place to this point if not of resolution at least a considerable step towards that final resolution. 
Sadly reading the history—the background to this settlement bill and the history of Ngati Pahauwera—is all too familiar. It is a story of people who in the turbulent times in this country in the mid 19th century were obliged to participate in wars and conflict not of their making and to their considerable loss. They lost not only their homes and resources; they lost their friends their whanau. It was a bad time in this country. We saw the destruction of social and economic as well as physical resources and systems; the structures that supported and had supported those people over many centuries were destroyed and it is only now over 100 years later that we seek to see those structures rebuilt in a way that meets the needs and the aspirations of the people who will benefit from these settlements. 
Mr Horomia has already made the point that the bill records that following hostilities in 1866 there was a raupatu a confiscation of all land between the Esk River and the Waikare River. Some of the whanau and hapu who lost land in that raupatu were indeed the same people who had stood alongside the Crown. It was indeed a very shabby reward for their loyalty for their support and for their commitment to that particular side in the battles of the day. There was a loss of land and there was an ongoing loss of well-being for those people. Indeed even after the shooting stopped again in too common a story the Native Land Court and other agencies of the Crown continued to nibble away at their resources at their possessions and at the rights and their well-being. It is only now that we seek to amend that loss to make good that loss and to provide some means some wherewithal for a rebuilding to begin. 
It was my pleasure as recently as last Sunday to travel through some of the land that is affected by this settlement. I travelled from Gisborne through the Hawke’s Bay through the Wairarapa and back here to Wellington. In the course of that journey there are many stunning views. There are some very beautiful landscapes. I am hard-pressed to think of a more dramatic more memorable landscape than that around the Mohaka River—those incredible vertical cliffs dropping to the river; it is extraordinarily rich in scenery and rich in natural beauty. Unfortunately that richness is not reflected in the well-being of many of the communities who live in that area. We know that as recently as 2001 an assessment of the people living in the Mohaka-Raupunga area found that those people were living at the lowest level according to the New Zealand index of deprivation. I daresay that is a great crime in fact; it is a great misfortune a great shame that people living in such a diverse and potentially rich part of the country have been reduced to such a condition. The economic social and cultural well-being has been stripped away over many years by the process of colonisation and it is a real and genuine privilege to be able to make a very small contribution to the making good to the amends that are now beginning to be made for that. 
Ngati Pahauwera under the provisions of this bill will gain some co-management rights to the Mohaka River and to the Waihua and Waikari rivers. There will be a co-management process in place and that is a good thing. It may not entirely meet the aspirations of those people those kaitiaki who may have preferred even more control and authority over the rivers and the future use of them. But it is a significant step and is not to be undervalued. I am sure that Ngati Pahauwera will be very active very committed partners in seeing to the restoration of the river the future care and utility of the water in it and the management of those taonga tukunga iho. 
With this co-management the resolution that is being acknowledged and passed today is a considerable step towards an ultimate resolution that will genuinely honour the spirit of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is a step towards enabling genuine exercise of tino rangatiratanga in this area we are speaking to specifically and in the country generally. It remains only for me again to wish Ngati Pahauwera every success as they utilise what has been given back to them as I am sure they will to build a much more positive future for themselves and for their descendants. We wish them well in that endeavour. Kia ora koutou.