Jones Shane: Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Jones Shane: Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:669;Page:15873] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 A kia ora ano tatou tenei huihuinga o tatou i roto i to tatou Whare i a tatou e whakatata ana ki te paunga o tenei tau e wha e rima e ono pea ra e toe ana katahi ka tutuki nga mahi i whakaritea hei korerotanga ma nga kaitorangapu i roto i to tatou Whare i tenei tau. Na reira me mihi atu au ki a tatou ta te mea kahore pea he take rahi atu pai atu i tenei hei korerotanga mau tatou i te toenga o tenei tau ta te mea ko ta tatou e mahi nei i teneki po he whakawhiwhi atu i nga uri o nga kaumatua me nga tupuna no ratou enei taonga i te tuatahi katahi ka whakakorea na eke rawa ki te wa e noho nei tatou e whakahoki ana ki a ratou. Na reira kati enei korero ki to tatou reo Maori. he wahanga pea e toe ana na ka hoki mai ano ahau. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings once again to us this assemblage in this House of ours as this year draws to a close with about 4 5 or 6 days remaining when the politicians in our House complete what has been set down for us to achieve this year. So I need to acknowledge us because there is no issue greater or better then this one for us to debate in what is left of the year because the task before us tonight is to deliver these resources to them descendants of the elders and ancestors who owned them originally but had them confiscated. The situation prevails to our time today as we consider their return. Insofar as saying something in our mother tongue is concerned this is sufficient for now. Should a part remain later I will come back again in our Maori language. Thank you all 
.] 
I join my colleagues in supporting the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. Ngati Apa are not only located in this part of Aotearoa that we are talking about they also are part of the Kurahaupo waka confederation and an element of that confederation moved into Te Wai Pounamu. There was a time when the iwi Ngati Tu Mata Kokiri if my memory serves me correctly were the tangata whenua in that portion of Te Tau Ihu o te Waka. Not only did Ngati Toa and elements from the Tainui waka go into that area but part of Ngati Apa as well. Good news has been visited upon the Ngati Apa of that area. One of their great leaders the whaea the kuia Kath Hemi had the ability to whakapapa not only to Ngati Kuia but to Ngati Apa and I dare say to Rangitane. 
I recite this history because in this part of Aotearoa there has been a dispersion of iwi and hapu partly as a result of colonisation but also pressures as a result of inter-iwi dynamics and some went to Te Wai Pounamu. To mention the name Ngati Apa down there is to invite a rather hefty response from Sir Tipene O’Regan as to where the Ngai Tahu boundary exists but that is for another discussion. 
This is also the people of Tariana Turia and I acknowledge her this evening. No doubt she has played a key role in ensuring that these claims in particular the ones from this area are not overshadowed by the more obstreperous iwi. I include my own Ngapuhi nui tonu iwi and that of my colleague Mr Parekura Horomia Ngati Porou. We tend to try to crowd out the space of people who have a somewhat more reserved approach to these matters. One may not believe it but I do have that view about Tariana Turia. No doubt she is reserving as to whom she will visit her favours upon post-2011. 
But let me come back to this bill. This bill enables the transfer of property and resources back to the tangata whenua. I just saw that one of the properties of great interest no doubt to Simon Power is the Marton golf course. Only a cursory view of recent Treaty-based history would tell us that there have been some dreadful rows about golf courses in Aotearoa. Indeed today I heard the daughter of Eva Rickard—Angeline Grensill the academic at Waikato University. As I heard her voice I could hear the strength of her mother the woman who in the late 1970s stared down Mr Muldoon over a golf course and also assembled a motley bunch of university students and various other fellow travellers who were interested in reviving interest in our language culture and land rights. It is good to know that that was eventually settled. I might be slightly ill-informed on whether the Marton golf course has created a similar level of disharmony but I doubt it very much. 
Not far from there is an area where one of the great kuia rangatira of Te Ao Maori was born. Her name was Mere Rikiriki. She had the whakapapa of these people. Members from that part of Aotearoa including the current member for Whanganui would know of her name. She was reputed to have predicted the emergence of the great Maori leader from Ngati Apa and similar tribes Wiremu Tahupotiki Ratana. I say that because when we are offering reserves the underlying title to golf courses land that has an economic value in terms of its afforestation and the rentals associated with growing trees on that land we must never forget that the landscape derives a lot of its meaning for the local Maori when they are able to recite the names of the hapu and the tupuna because it is an ancient Maori belief that to recite or to utter the name is to invoke the presence. As they say: “He mana ano to te kupu he mana ano to te ingoa”. 
So although there are neighbouring claims that have not been settled and they are on a slower trajectory it is good that we can join and move forward on this issue. There will not be an immediate bonanza there will not be an immediate El Dorado from these kinds of lands but it satisfies a part of the Maori personality and the Crown’s honour that we do the best we can at a given point in time and do it with honesty and sincerity and are willing to stand up and be counted. It is easy to lambast deals of this nature: that it is an insufficient quantum it is an inadequate response. But in all of these Maori Treaty-based initiatives that we are pursuing in this decade we rely on the goodwill of the people on both sides. If we move too far away from having either the ability or the sight to foster ongoing goodwill then we lose the mandate or we lose the legitimacy within the public to continue with this work. 
It is good that the two main parties supported by other parliamentary parties etc. are able to say that these lands are being restored. Indeed some of them will be administered by local government. I fail to see why my own relations in the far north and indeed my very good friend the Mayor of Far North District Council are not able to explore with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations whether that represents a remedy to the ongoing wrangles in that lovely seaside village otherwise known as Taipa. The name Taipa comes from the fact that wherever one touched there was a great deal of seafood although Auckland is about to invade my area over the next 2 or 3 weeks so I fear the seafood may take a bit of a hammering. However Labour will be back by the end of next year and the seafood will be restored—kina paua koura mataitai kai moana—all sorts of different delicacies. 
Rahui Katene 
: Kutae. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Kutae yes. As is always the case it is a challenge to define whom one is settling with. But those rules and the role of defining who the members of Ngati Apa are lie with their runanga. The Crown has observed a set of constitutional thresholds and it really is a responsibility that has to lie with the hapu and the runanga as opposed to us following some sort of North American model where an entitled family might be a fraction of this and a fraction of that. In fact I have met a whole host of descendants of the original Native American tribes and they give their blood quantum in fractions. I perish the thought: one day I am going to have a mokopuna because my daughter is about to get married and the fellow she is marrying is a little bit Portuguese a bit Spanish and a bit Maori. My daughter is a bit Dalmatian a bit Welsh and a bit Maori. So we have not gone for that approach; we have gone for this very expansive view that those who are members of the hapu are accepted by the local people and have the ability to attest that they whakapapa back to the original tupuna can then claim to be Maori. If the group they purport to belong to decides that someone is not living up to their name or that their zest for consuming the rights that that whakapapa might give them are not up to speed then they will be told off. Kia ora tatou.