Ngati Tama Claims Settlement Bill

The Greens have outlined our concerns about the treaty settlement process. We consider that it is fundamentally flawed and that it creates further injustices. We are putting forward two amendments on this part that we believe will help to alleviate some of that injustice, and we urge this Committee to support those amendments.

The two amendments are the deletion of clause 12, which renders the settlement as final, and the deletion of clause 13, which removes the jurisdiction of the Waitangi Tribunal. If those clauses remain in the bill, they will remove for ever all opportunity for the reconsideration of the appropriateness of the restitution and—most important—the process by which that restitution has come about.

We recognise the Crown’s admission that such processes and restitution are what is appropriate in this particular time and in this particular circumstance. We cannot see why iwi and hapū should be required to sign away all opportunity they may have for reconsideration of that process in the future. That is not the means by which the Crown should be developing a long-term, ongoing relationship with iwi that has durability and mutual respect. That is not the means by which that relationship and te tiriti should be given effect to.

The Greens do support the resolution of, and restitution for, all outstanding historical and current breaches of te tiriti. We are simply not convinced that the treaty settlement process does this, and that concern is held by a significant proportion of our population, both Māori and non-Māori. We believe that by deleting clauses 12 and 13 we will be able to remedy some of those injustices.

In the debate on the second reading we raised the very serious concerns and issues of a significant portion of Ngāti Tama, represented by the whānau whānui, who had consistently raised, over a number of years, concerns about the governance entity. We clearly identified the failure of the settlement process and the failure of the funding process within the Office of Treaty Settlements, which put that office in a very serious conflicted position and rendered it entirely unable to deal effectively with the issues.

We also talked about the fact that those concerns have not been dealt with subsequent to the select committee’s consideration of the matter, and that those issues remain, at this late stage in the process, major points of contention. We are very concerned to allow the passage of the bill without those concerns being sorted out and without there being any future means by which the parties can resolve the issues in an independent forum. Therefore we believe that by deleting clauses 12 and 13 the parties will be able to have the provisions in the bill reconsidered.

The primary concern is that should this bill be passed, the iwi as a whole will be able to have the structural and legislative space to develop the processes that will lead to confidence in the governance entity, in whatever form and with whatever membership it determines, to manage its own assets. It is crucial that the iwi has real confidence in the body that manages those hard-fought and hard-won resources—resources for its future economic maintenance—because, although the redress is minimal compared with what was lost, it is, none the less, a significant resource for an iwi that has been bereft of its capacity for economic independence for generations. We urge the Committee to support those amendments.

I had expected not to speak on Part 3. It was the machinery for settlement, and as far as it went, it appeared to be innocuous. But I am prompted to rise by the hostility of the Green Party to this clause, and I am sure that the member who has just spoken, Metiria Turei—

💬 Metiria Turei: I’m not surprised.

STEPHEN FRANKS:—is not surprised, as she tells me. The idea that clause 12—the clause that says that this settlement is final—should go, should really be the confirmation of what we have feared about the whole process. If that provision were removed, the rest of the bill would probably achieve the purpose of the Greens. That purpose is to have New Zealand defined in terms of ethnic inheritance and status groups—not of individuals all equal before a law that treated them alike, but as members of little politicised groupings that do not owe their allegiances and loyalty to the country as a whole, or to their fellow citizens without discrimination, but instead have their primary identification by way of race or inheritance.

That a party could seriously urge the omission of clause 12, the provision that purports to make these settlements final, should not be allowed to pass in this debate. We have our doubts as to whether those settlements are final, but at least clause 12 says they are, and discharges the Crown entirely from future liability. The idea that that speech could be made and not be answered meant that we have to rise on this part, and we do. That clause should be strengthened. Our concern is that although it states there is a final discharge, the overall structure of these agreements leaves avenues open for people to come back later and say: “We was robbed.”

The structure here purports to offer privileges—or does it? We cannot tell, because the language is so vague in respect of shellfish, fisheries, paua fisheries, and certain rights over cultural-redress land. Even the words should strike fear into the hearts of most New Zealanders. What is “cultural redress”? Is it something like “cultural safety”—that thing that has turned our nursing education into a joke, because 20 percent of nurses’ time is spent worrying about how to approach people who really only want to be approached with kindness and courtesy? The Green Party seems to be endorsing a view that we should be in a state of perpetual cultural redress, that finality is an illusion that should never appear in our legislation.

Part 3 is the normal machinery—the mechanics part of the bill that says what the agreement is intended to do—at least, on its face. Settlement is intended to be full and final—despite the defects in it, which we think mean that it might not be. I did not fully understand—but, I have to confess, probably not because the member who just spoke was obscure, but because I got distracted—why the Greens were opposed to clause 13, which ousts the jurisdiction of the Waitangi Tribunal. Sorry, I do understand it! It is consistent with the Greens’ effort to see clause 12 removed that they also want to leave the Waitangi Tribunal able to come back and reopen claims on Ngāti Tama. It is consistently weird to be able to say: “We have a settlement that hands over many millions of dollars worth of property and potential nuisance rights that could, in future, be converted to money if someone was so minded.” The Greens want to say, as well, that: “You’ve got all your options to go back and say that it was not enough and that you want more.” That might well happen, but there is no point in changing this bill to encourage that. ACT will not vote against Part 3 as long as the approach urged by the Greens is not adopted.

I rise to say that the Government does not support the amendment. The whole purpose of the treaty settlement process is to enable both parties to move on in a new relationship by reaching a mutual agreement on the issues that become the subject of the settlement deed. That is, in fact, the whole purpose of the exercise. The amendment would undermine that.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 12 be agreed to:

to omit this clause.