Franks Stephen: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:21927] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to speak on this third and final stage of the Ngaa Rauru Kiitaki Claims Settlement Bill. I stand in Richard Prebble’s shoes at the moment having seen the speech notes of his contribution to the debate on the Committee stage. I adopt what he said because in speaking for the ACT party on a number of these bills he has said it so much more simply and clearly than I could have attempted. 
I express endorse and adopt his concern that in effect we demean this House by passing bills like this. We demean this House because instead of confining ourselves to doing what a legislature should do which is to authorise the redress of wrongs—and there were wrongs—we have got into the habit of using legislation to make rhetorical statements and worse than that of making a patently greasy submission to views and values that say this country is no longer protecting the notion of the secular State. 
In a bill that goes so much further than is necessary we are also recording apologies. All this bill needed to do was to authorise the transfers and to record the status of the lands being vested and the lands over which coast stewardship was being created. By having a bill that records apologies based on partial recitals of history we actually make those apologies much more easy to repudiate. I think that a future generation will come to this legislation and say: “That was then; this is now.” A future generation will say that this bill can be read only as a creature of some very curious times—of times when two old political parties who had got into the habit for over 20 years of consoling each other that although the rest of New Zealand did not believe a word of what they said in those areas they because they held hands and pretended they were on a sacred mission could put anything in legislation provided they had the right spirit. 
Their spirit and their intention was good. They wanted to help settle grievances. They wanted the people involved to put behind them the brooding sense of injustice they had. But behind it all too were two decades of politicians who had been covertly using race as a means of distinguishing “them and us”—of deciding who were the out-group and who were the in-group. 
So we have these fanciful “principles”. I do not blame judges for finding principles. The legislation told them they had to find principles. The legislation told them they had to develop a theory of why they were finding principles where there were none so they invented a mythical partnership and this House sent New Zealand down a long blind alley of race discrimination—when the treaty had been signed by people who knew it was intended to lead to our being one people! 
ACT then will be obliged to vote against this bill because we will not be party—as we have not been for years—to legislation that recites principles that do not exist and that directs courts to take account of spiritual and cultural values on one page and then two or three pages later tells the courts they do not need to give them any weight but instead to act as if they were not there—in the sergeant’s terms: “As you were.” So we end up with a bill that is creating a form of power and authority; it has smoke but not substance. 
The bill is not giving what it should have given which is a clean break. Just as in matrimonial law the idea is that one does not force parties who have been unhappy with each other to spend time negotiating and continuing that relationship this bill sets up the iwi to be involved in repeated discussions of trying to emphasis their heritage and of trying to assert their traditional views of what should happen in relation to land with local authorities with the Environment Court and with ministries under protocols when in fact all those bodies will be then told: “As you were—listen to them and then ignore them.” 
 That is the effect of those parts of the bill and if this legislation had been a matter of a simple transfer of property a straightforward endowment of money or a restoration of something that had been lost the ACT party could have voted for it. But instead we go through this bill and in so many places we see a Government that is deliberately creating dismissible legislation. 
I say that honourable apologies are apologies given in full knowledge with both sides fully accepting the position of the other and deciding to go forward on a basis that is a fresh start. This bill does not create a fresh start. It has a whole lot of words in it that for years from now—forever if one believes the legislation—courts are going to have to grapple with. 
What will it mean when a submission is made about a piece of Department of Conservation land by people earnestly believing they have been given a special right and then the submission is ignored? Why do we put something in legislation that we direct the courts to take account of but then tell the courts that the provision has no weight? Parliament is demeaning itself by passing that kind of legislation. 
I am absolutely delighted to be in this House on the first day that the National Party has voted against one of these claims settlement bills. I hope the House will not be served up with anything like this legislation in future. These bills should be unanimous. 
When the ACT party first voted against the Ngai Tahu settlement it should have been noted that that was a principled position. As the party that stands for property rights ACT wanted to see the claims settled. We wanted to see property theft remedied and that matter put behind the claimants. All the other parties treated our protests—which were principled—as if we were racists. At last we are now seeing— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That is not correct. National did not. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Well I am sorry; it certainly appeared that way but I say let bygones be bygones on that. 
I have now heard speeches from New Zealand First—indeed a very fine speech made by the leader of New Zealand First on Tuesday—about treaty matters. To see at least some parties putting their votes where their mouths are is an encouraging sign for New Zealand. 
However I heard New Zealand First speakers indicate they were voting for this bill despite the bill’s inclusion of the term “the principles” in I think seven places. That is a bit baffling because if New Zealand First members were really going to be consistent—if they were really going to send a message to the public servants who of course are required to negotiate those matters that in future they had better negotiate with a different set of instructions because otherwise they would run the serious risk of the House not approving the matters—then it would have been helpful to have them not only make fine speeches out in the provinces but use their votes to be consistent with what they had said. 
The bill has four main flaws. The select committee did change the bill although we have been told so often that it is not appropriate for this House to change a settlement bill. The select committee did change the bill—it changed some translation. It could easily have held up the report back and come back to the House and said there were matters it was very uncomfortable about—for example members of two parties did not wish to see religious views embodied in legislation. The committee could easily have suggested that the settlement would have been just as powerful without the reference to the so-called principles and that would have made it acceptable to the ACT party and probably more acceptable to New Zealand First. 
Instead the select committee did not. It came back with a very unhelpful report so the ACT party is left in a position where the only way we can mark that is by voting against a settlement that in its substance we want to see proceed. We want to see those properties vested and we want to see those people’s grievances redressed.