Henare Tau: Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Henare Tau: Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7703. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 He mea tuatahi taku mihi ki a koutou nga morehu o nga aitua kai a koutou Ngati Apa tena koutou. Tena koutou i to haere mai i tenei ra ki te whakarongo ki nga korero mo ta koutou kereme. No reira ka mihi ki a koutou. 
[ 
Firstly I acknowledge you Ngati Apa survivors of misfortunes greetings to you. Thank you for coming today to listen to the debates on your claim; I applaud you. 
] 
I have been trying to figure out what I would say because everyone has basically said the same thing about how sorry they are and about what an apology means—and absolutely they mean it. I thought I might take a different tack; those of us from Te Tai Tokerau are known for taking a different tack. 
Paul Quinn 
: A tactful approach! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: A tactful approach! So first of all I want to pay due respect to Parekura Horomia the previous Minister of Maori Affairs who with his colleagues including Mita Ririnui signed off the deed. Secondly I pay my respects to Chris Finlayson who I think has done a pretty sterling job since he became Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations not more than 12 months ago. Thirdly and to me personally this is most important I pay respects to my colleague Tariana Turia who as we all know has had a week from hell in the last 7 days—and no I will not be apologising to her on behalf of my cousin. 
There are people who come to the House carrying with them the hope that one day they will be able to stand in the House and talk about their own people in a way that tells a story that most if not all New Zealanders hardly know anything about. One of the parts of a treaty negotiation and settlement is the telling of a story. I have just finished reading a book which I picked up for nine bucks in a second-hand store called  
The West 
. The most interesting part of that book talked about how the First Nation people—Native American people Indian people; call them what you will—went through a lot of treaty-signing processes but said the thing that they never got right was to sort the issues out over a period of time. I think that we in this country before anybody else in the world have developed a way of having the story told the tears flow and people pass away during the process and finally there is a coming together of ideas on ways to start anew. 
The words “Treaty settlement” are good; the process settles I believe breaches of a treaty that was signed in 1840. But the process also has more meaning to that—as I said there is the telling of stories and the putting of them on paper so that people in the generations to come will know the history of our nation. But more important the process talks about and offers the opportunity to remember the past to not commit the same crimes as we did in the past to apologise for those crimes in the past and to step forth on a new path—not just for two people five people or 200 people but in this case for the whole “nation” of Ngati Apa. Now it is their decision as to which path they take and in this House we must be behind them 100 percent as they go about their business. In terms of business whether it is in terms of health education—you name it—it really is up to Ngati Apa with of course the help of the Government where necessary. 
On looking at the notes in front of me I see dates. One day someone in the future will do a chronology of when things happened and the dates that I am about to read out will most probably for Ngati Apa and for other iwi around the country stand out: 1840 1844 1849 1866 1867 1887 and 1957. Just by reading out those dates we can get some semblance of how long this has taken. I will not talk about the quantum of the settlement because as one of my colleagues has said it is never enough and how can we put a figure on all of the injustices of the past? The fact that we have arrived at this point in time is something we should be happy about. One of the things I have learnt not only in the House but also in the past 40-odd years is that we can remember what happened we can sympathise with people and we can feel aroha about what happened in the past but the true test is what we do afterwards. The true test is where we go after we have signed the deed. The true test for a Government is to figure out what to do after making an apology. It is not good enough to say: “Sorry folks we got it wrong.” and then just file away the apology in a cabinet somewhere. We have an obligation and an opportunity to make the nation’s lot better from what we do. 
As chairman of the Maori Affairs Committee I am not daunted by the fact that my colleague has given 17 March as the report-back date for the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. Even though we are getting near the end of the year I can assure Ngati Apa that all of the members of the select committee will work their backsides off to get this bill back into the House as soon as possible. That does not mean that we will decline to hear from everybody; we want to hear from everybody and we will take it upon ourselves not to meet here but in Ngati Apa. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Before Christmas! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Maybe. Let us just see how things pan out. 
I will say one more thing which might be outrageous to some people but then again it might not be to other people: where is the “h”? I just thought I would throw that in for the benefit of my friend and former colleague Mr Michael Laws. Although we can laugh about it—and the great thing about our country is that we can enjoy a poke at our whanau now and then—that issue goes to the heart of this nation as well. If we cannot bring ourselves to spell somebody’s name right then what are we doing when we apologise for all the other stuff that we did? That is a question I would like to leave for the House to consider. Maybe somebody somewhere sometime will sort that one out. 
No reira e te whanau e aku rangatira e aku teina me aku tuakana tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
So greetings to the family my chiefs younger and older siblings greetings to you all. 
]