SpeechTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) (remote): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I acknowledge the tough times that we're going through and the fact that we have taken this online as we did for our submission hearings as well. As chair of the Māori Affairs Committee it was less than desirable. We would very much have liked to travel to Taranaki to go and hear the submission hearings and to look the people in the eye but unfortunately we were unable to do that then for the submission hearings and we're still unable to do that now. So Ngāti Maru ahakoa kei hea koutou poipoia e tēnei whenua e tēnei motu o Aotearoa he mihi tēnei ki a koutou. [So Ngāti Muru wherever you may be be cared for by this land this country of Aotearoa New Zealand this is my acknowledgment to you.]I'm proud to take a call on the second reading of this bill. The Ngāti Maru (Taranaki) Claims Settlement Bill was referred to our komiti Māori on 6 July 2021. The closing date for submissions was 18 August 2021. We got advice on the bill from Te Arawhiti—thank you to them for their continued support to the committee through this process. The Office of the Clerk also provided some advice on the bill's legislative quality and Parliamentary Counsel assisted with legal drafting. We received and considered 35 submissions from various interest groups and individuals and we heard oral evidence from eight submitters. The majority of the submitters had a desire to move everybody forward for the benefit of Ngāti Maru—for their people for the wider community for the future ngā tamariki mokopuna kei te heke mai [for the children and grandchildren to come]—and they wanted to acknowledge also those people that had passed on who were also quite active in initiating and moving the claim forward from the beginning and the collective mahi and dedication achieved in reaching this settlement their settlement. They had optimism for their tamariki and for their mokopuna so that they could fulfil their aspirations and they had a desire to restore revitalise and enhance the mauri of Ngāti Maruwharanui. That was the overwhelming feeling of some of the submitters who were absolutely in support and saw no reason for the select committee to stand in their way. I will talk very briefly about the Ngāti Maru (Taranaki) Fisheries Trust who also came before the committee. They put submissions in. There was a longstanding issue that we as a committee heard about that had been happening between the Ngāti Maru Fisheries Trust and Te Kāhui Maru which is the entity set to receive this settlement. The fisheries trust felt as though to be able to go through this—what they said in their submissions was that they thought that the restrictiveness of the Ngāti Maru claimant definition for the Treaty settlement was too restrictive. They had concerns surrounding the facilitation process and they had concerns around the rūnanga's mandate to negotiate a Treaty settlement—full stop. We had to fill ourselves in with this conversation because it had been going for quite some time prior to it coming before the committee but after we'd heard the submissions and taken our advice we—the committee—decided that actually Te Kāhui Maru Trust did in fact have the mandate it did in fact go through thorough processes around facilitation to make sure that that was nice and tight and there were plenty of opportunities via the independent review of the Ngāti Maru tribal register. That was conducted in 2017 as part of negotiations and we were comfortable that they had a robust process to be able to include people that wanted to be included on their rūnanga register. This was an interesting settlement because this is the last of the Taranaki iwi to come before the select committee looking for settlement on their grievance. I along with the rest of the committee look forward to the third reading of their settlement bill. Again I'm sorry that we couldn't be in each other's company for this—the second reading—but what I did note what I did observe and what I do know is that Ngāti Maru are very very keen to get this through to be able to receive their settlement to be able to receive their redress and to be able to hear the Crown acknowledgments and the Crown apology as we move forward into the third reading. I do want to acknowledge that point there too—the reading out of the apology—which was something that was discussed. On 29 September Ngāti Maru set out their aspiration for the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations to visit the Ngāti Maru rohe after the third reading to deliver the Crown apology to the claimant community. On their request the Minister did not deliver the Crown apology at the signing of their ceremony but we decided to hold off on it. We did have to go back to them to see if they wanted the apology mentioned at all throughout this select committee process or the first the second or the third reading and they advised us that they would like the committee to be able to read their apology as part of the third reading. So we look forward to doing that and to addressing past wrongs but I acknowledge Ngāti Maruwharanui and the journey that they've been on through our select committee process but through our wider political process as well to try and deliver a better future for their tamariki and their mokopuna. I commend this bill to the House.