Delahunty Catherine: Hineuru Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Hineuru Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5654. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker tēnā koutou te Whare Pāremata. He mihi nui ki a Ngāti Hineuru me Te Kōpere trustees o te Iwi o Hineuru Trust inā ahikāroa o ō rātou whenua he mihi nui.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to you collectively the House of Parliament; a huge one to you Ngāti Hineuru; and a great gesture by the trustees of the Te Kōpere o te iwi o Hineuru Trust who are promoting the continuous occupation of their lands.]The Green Party is very pleased to stand in support of the first reading of this settlement bill. I think we feel very deeply that what has been “invisible-ised” must be brought into the light through this process. This iwi has been through more than most people in this country could possibly imagine—more marginalisation more violence and more land loss—with the added hurt of being “invisible-ised” right up to relatively recent times. Saying their name acknowledging their mana recognising their place and recognising their work and their tenacity to get to this point is a very important part of it as is recognising their tūpuna and those who have gone before and those who have gone before in the negotiation process to get to this point.The story of the historical account is indeed a profound experience to read. It is a heavy story much like many others that we have heard in this House but with the added pain of so much of it being unknown to many others and so much of it being marginalised. So many other names are known but the story of Ngāti Hineuru has to come to light so that this nation can move forward.Like my colleagues I want to acknowledge that there is too much to cover in the first reading but it is a beginning and I want to acknowledge as Meka Whaitiri said that there is so much in the historical account to acknowledge and so much that needs to be talked about. I just want to touch on perhaps my whakapapa as a Pākehā requiring me to acknowledge the role which needs to be examined of people like Donald MacLean and Whitmore—Meka Whaitiri: Hard.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Yeah—General Whitmore. Streets are named after these men all over the country particularly on the East Coast. Streets are named after these men and they are regarded as the founding fathers. But where is the street that is named after Te Rangi Hīroa? Where is the street that is named after the tūpuna of Ngāti Hineuru? So I think that it is very important that we actually examine the behaviour of all of our tūpuna including those of the Pākehā culture.We look at the historical account and we can see that Donald MacLean decided without a really clear explanation that the people were a threat. The Crown under Donald MacLean decided that the party at Ōmarunui was a threat to the security of the regions surrounding Napier. It could be argued that in the context of the wars that were taking place that Donald MacLean was acting in the interests of the Pākehā community but what he was doing was acting in the interests of colonisation. So too was General Whitmore acting in the interests of my culture to take over the whenua of many peoples—particularly this people Ngāti Hineuru. So this is indeed a dishonourable story which is really important to acknowledge and we need to acknowledge the death that took place.After all of the negotiations and the mana of people like Te Rangi Hīroa and after all of their attempts to negotiate in fairness and justice with the Crown what happened at Ōmarunui and Pētane in those days tells another story: a story of dishonour on behalf of my people my culture and the Crown. That needs to be acknowledged in order for us all to move forward. There needs to be acknowledgment of those things because it is tragic to read that halfway through the 1860s the men were either dead had retreated to other parts of the motu or had been transported to Wharekauri. And so the women at Tarawera lamented their losses every morning and evening with customary mourning practices scoring themselves with pipi shells “with the effect of making them weep most naturally.” There is much to weep about when all of your men have been taken when your land has been taken and when your people are on an island offshore with Te Kooti without trial and without justice.And so the story continues to be intertwined with the story of Te Kooti Pai Mārire and the Hauhau movement and the story of the people returning to Whareongaonga a place I have been to where Te Kooti and people from Ngāti Hineuru the whakarau landed in order to return to Aotearoa. But that was just another round of tragedy and another round of marginalisation. I think that it is really important to acknowledge that the whakarau should never be forgotten; that story should be taught in every school in this country. People need to understand what it is to be imprisoned without trial to escape peacefully basically and to come back to your home country and then to be hounded by the Crown throughout the motu. I think that we have already touched on what happened at Ngātapa—an appalling story of Crown culpability.So it is really important that we acknowledge that the end of the war meant that Hineuru could maybe return finally to their rohe but of course that was not the end of the instruments of colonisation. So then comes another hundred years—another hundred years—of rip-offs manipulations individualisations and destruction through the wonderful instruments that the Crown had created in order to continue the colonisation process. So we might debate how much is being spent on Te Tiriti settlements but we need to remember that we have got more than 170 years of the rip-off and that we need to invest in the healing. We need to do that properly and we need to invest in that healing. So it is really important that we actually understand what happened.I support the fact that the historical account is very very clear that the 1951 royal commission report raised more issues and acknowledged that the Crown should not have interfered with the titles that were provided in 1870 but still it goes on. Still there was more marginalisation and loss. So today we are beginning a more positive moment as my colleague Nuk Korako showed when he took us through the settlement aspirations and the response. Still the people have held on and they have very clear aspirations. They have the six pou and those six pou are very very strong.I was in Tai Rāwhiti this week with another iwi who have had their settlement and one of the things they said to me was: “Yes it’s very awesome to be focusing on the rebuild and we must but one of the tragedies is so many people have left. How do we bring our people home?”. So I am sure that that will be part of the plan but it is not an easy plan because to bring the people home you have to have work for the people. You have to have mahi and to create mahi it takes more than a one-off settlement. So I honour the pou because I can see the vision but I think that it also behoves the rest of the motu and the Crown to actually facilitate not just a settlement but also a genuine opportunity for regional development that will allow those settlements to be what they can be and not just to leave it to the iwi involved to find a way because there is so much to rebuild—there is so much to rebuild. It is not only the reconnection to the whenua and the whakapapa but also the reconnection to the taonga and the reconnection to the relationship with awa and with maunga—all of those things—and then to be able to survive in their own rohe on the terms that the people have defined in their settlement aspirations.So there is much work to be done and in the first reading all that we can do is say “Fantastic work.” to the negotiators and honour what they have created here as a first step—as a platform—but also recognise how much more there is to be done. The Green Party does need to say as we always do that settlements are not full and final; they are the first step. There is always more negotiating to take place and there is a need for more investment by the Crown because so much was destroyed and taken. The miracle is that the vision of the people—the kaupapa that we face here today—was not destroyed and taken. That is something that we need to honour here today. That is something to be proud of. But again I say to my own people to Pākehā tātou as well as to the Crown that we need to learn the history. When we drive down Whitmore Street and we look down MacLean whatever we need to recognise that actually those men did things in our name from which we have benefited at the expense of an iwi such as Ngāti Hineuru.So in order to move forward togetheras a nation—kotahitanga unity mana motuhake—we as Pākehā have to face those things and say that there are other names. There are other people who stood strong and whom we should honour. Whether it is Te Kooti or Te Rangi Hīroa we need to stand up and honour those people. We need to know why we own all the whenua and why we control the resources today so that redress can be understood by Pākehā and so that there will be a generosity of spirit on our side of the culture as well as a generosity by the Crown and instead of expecting all of the generosity that has been given today by Ngāti Hineuru in a settlement that does go some way to restoring the people but that will still take a lot more work. So I guess we are very happy to support this settlement. We are very happy that the “invisiblisation” of Ngāti Hineuru is over and that this iwi will not only be seen but also be able to begin to be strong again. Kia kaha. Kia ora tātou katoa.