Korako Nuk: Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKorako Nuk: Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9736. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā ā tēnā rā koutou ngā puāwaitaka ō tō tātou Mātua Tupuna. Ka mea nui ki te mihi atu ki tō tātou Matua Nui i Te Raki a Koe i te tīmataka me te whakaoti o Te Ao katoa. Nō reira ka mihi au ki Te Kaihōmai o ka mea katoa.Ka maumahara mātou ki a rātou kai tua kua wehe ki Te Ao Wairua. Ē nō reira e koutou rā ō ia marae ō ia iwi ō ia waka e haere i ruka ki Te Ara-Whānui-ā-Tāne ko tua o Te Ārai haere haere e haere atu rā!Nō reira āpiti hono tātai hono rātou ko te hunga mate ki a rātou tātou ko te hunga ora ki a tātou. Ā tēnei hoki te mihi atu ki a koe e Te Minita Te Hōnore Chris Finlayson. Ā tēnei te mihi ki Te Iwi o Te Atiawa a ki Taranaki e haere mai ka Waka oTokomaru e tau mai nei ki Te Whare Pāremata. Nō reira e Taranaki Mauka e ngā mana e ngā tapu e ngā ihi e ngā wehi kua eke mai nei ki te whakarite i te karaka; e haere mai e tau mai nei ki Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara. Ko Tūtehounuku Kōrako tēnei Te Kaiwhakahaere o Te Komiti Whiriwhiri take Māori nō reira e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker and acknowledgments to you who have come to fruition and are of our great Ancestor to whom I extend huge tidings the Great Ancestor of the North. You indeed begin and end the world and so I pay homage to the Creator of all things.We reminisce for those who have gone beyond the veil and departed to the spiritual world; and so to those who belong to each marae tribe and canoe who have journeyed on upon the great path of Tāne and beyond the veil depart farewell and go forth indeed. Let the dead abide with the dead and the living with the living and so greetings to us all.I acknowledge you the Hon Christopher Finlayson and the tribe Te Atiawa of Taranaki. So welcome the canoeTokomaru the mountain of Taranaki the prestigious the sacred and the awed that have arrived here in Parliament House to respond to the call; welcome here to Wellington. This is Tūtehounuku Kōrako chairman of the Māori Affairs Committee extending a welcome to you all.]I believe one of the most important things we do in the Treaty settlement process is reflect back on the history of our country and acknowledge the wrongs that were committed by the Crown against Māori.In the case of Te Atiawa these wrongs are many. Te Atiawa’s experience with underhanded dealings on the part of European settlers came at the hands of the New Zealand Company. The New Zealand Company purported to have purchased 20 million acres of land which included all of Taranaki. This was unknown to most Te Atiawa Māori many of whom were not even living in Taranaki at the time. This was unknown to most of Te Atiawa.The New Zealand Company did not get its 20 million acres but Land Commissioner Sir William Spain recommended it be granted a substantial amount of Taranaki land including lands that had not been relinquished by Te Atiawa and for which payment from the Crown was never received. Robert FitzRoy who at that time was the Governor of New Zealand responded to Māori concerns and prevented Spain’s recommended grants of Taranaki lands to the New Zealand Company.When Governor FitzRoy was replaced by Governor Grey things took a turn for the worse. Grey was instructed to secure the rest of the land Spain had recommended and he met with various Te Atiawa hapū to inform them that he intended to secure more of their land. Despite the opposition of many in Te Atiawa the Crown took advantage of disagreements within and between Taranaki iwi in the absence of many of the customary owners of the land to alienate further blocks of land through agreements with small groups of Māori. This policy as we know today is called divide and conquer.Eventually large numbers of absent Te Atiawa sought to return to Taranaki despite Governor Grey’s threats to keep them away even using various devious means. The land sales continued and documentary evidence from the time shows that Crown agents deliberately exploited disagreements between Māori and knew that the so-called purchases of land were happening without the approval of or a resulting benefit to the majority of traditional owners. There was some attempt or at least lip service to put aside reserves for Te Atiawa during these land sales but the amount of land received differed widely. For instance in the Hua block a mere 10 acres of 14000 acres was reserved and the Crown encouraged the Māori who had sold the land to purchase sections in it for more than three times the sale price that they had received.When a group of unarmed Te Atiawa resisted the surveying by the Crown of a disputed block which the Crown claimed to have purchased the Crown responded by declaring martial law and sent in troops. The situation quickly descended into war. It took a year of fighting before the Crown agreed to peace and an investigation of the disputed purchase in 1861. Fighting broke out again in 1863 and the Crown began constructing military installations on Te Atiawa land which included sacred wāhi tapu sites.Eventually the Crown exercised its powers under the despicable New Zealand Settlements Act to confiscate the lands of so-called rebel iwi. This raupatu completely deprived Te Atiawa of their lands. As flawed as the then Government’s definition of “friendly” and “rebel” Māori might have been its confiscation was indiscriminate affecting even those Te Atiawa Māori who had refrained from fighting or who participated in land purchases or who expressed loyalty to the Crown.The history of Te Atiawa since the mass confiscation has been one of fighting to regain at least some of their land. Reading the historical account in their deed of settlement it seems that for every step forward this iwi has taken they have been pushed back two or more by the Crown. The Crown set up the West Coast Commission. It must have been music to the ears of Te Atiawa that this commission would hear their claims and report on them but the commission was not impartial and rather than focusing on addressing Māori grievances it sought a so-called balance with the interests of European settlers.In the end the recommendation was that the surest guarantee of peace was European occupation European settlement and the establishment of English homesteads. To add insult to the injury the commission recommended a sum of compensation to Ngāti Rāhiri a hapū of Te Atiawa but it recommended that rather than paying this money to the hapū it be used to fence roads that the Crown had built through their lands. When the reserve was finally put aside for Te Atiawa the public trustee used its powers to lease or sell those reserves to Europeans.In the 1960s the titles of all Māori reserves in Taranaki were amalgamated which then allowed the Crown to sell some blocks of land without the consent of owners who had ancestral links to those plots. These and other breaches of the Treaty left Te Atiawa with no way of supporting themselves and deprived them of the resources that now contribute to the rich industries of Taranaki.It is not possible for this deed of settlement to restore everything Te Atiawa has lost but it does provide an official apology for the hurt and the destitution that the Crown’s actions have caused. The redress included provides a financial base for the iwi to build on and support its members.I acknowledge once again the Te Atiawa members who are here today the rakatira and those who have worked so hard to reach this milestone in their Treaty settlement process. As chair of the Māori Affairs Committee I look forward to hearing their submissions and working to ensure that this bill does all it needs to give effect to their deed of settlement. Ka tūtohu au i tēnei pire ki te aroaro o Te Whare. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.