New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill

I move, That the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill.

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā hau e whā, tēnā tātau e Te Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[To the powers, languages, and the four winds, acknowledgments to us, the House, greetings, salutations and accolades to us all.]

I welcome the people of New Plymouth and Waitara to this House today, whether you are here in person or whether you are watching via television. It is a journey that is of some distance, not just from North Taranaki but through the difficult history that the people from North Taranaki have travelled. I acknowledge those who have gone before and cannot be here—I acknowledge you. This is a local bill and I acknowledge the New Plymouth District Council. I acknowledge Mayor Andrew Judd, who is present today, and councillors Craig McFarlane and Colin Johnston, representing Waitara. I acknowledge the people of Te Atiawa—Liana Poutu, chair of Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa Trust. I acknowledge the leaseholder residents of the town of Waitara.

The New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill seeks to provide a new future for the town of Waitara in North Taranaki. Waitara has just under 7,000 residents. It is a beautiful town, with the Waitara River passing through it. The views of Taranaki maunga are stunning. There are rugged surf beaches and excellent fishing, and a climate second to none in the Taranaki region. It is a classic New Zealand town, in many respects. It has a strong community. However, it has seen some challenging times, with a difficult and dark history. There are those with a strong sense that it has been held back by legislation of the past, in more ways than one.

The challenges for Waitara arise from its role in a pivotal moment of our country’s history. Waitara was originally a Te Atiawa settlement. The Crown first attempted to purchase Waitara in 1859, against the wishes of many of the iwi, ultimately leading to the outbreak of the first Taranaki War in Waitara in 1860—a war that then spread throughout New Zealand. Waitara was then confiscated, along with much of Te Atiawa’s homelands, in 1865 by the Crown as retribution for the wars. The Crown has acknowledged and apologised for this grievous wrongdoing, and this House is currently considering settlement legislation for Te Atiawa in a separate piece of work and legislation.

Some of that confiscated land was vested by law in the predecessors of New Plymouth District Council as endowment land. These endowments were made to enable the town to develop. Endowments were a common way of financing local authorities and public institutions in those days. The endowment land is now largely leasehold land, subject to perpetual leases. Just under one-quarter of all residential houses in Waitara have these Glasgow leases, and leaseholders have long sought to buy the land under their houses. The council is restricted to using the endowment income for a short list of outdated purposes, such as reconstructing the town’s bridge if it were to fail.

Even from this short summary of the history, it is clear that there are various and competing interests in the land held in Waitara by the council. Te Atiawa seek the return of their lands, leaseholders seek to freehold their houses, and the community is not able to best use the proceeds from the land. The council caught in the middle has attempted to resolve the issue each way in the past. Firstly, the council tried to enable leaseholders to freehold by introducing a bill into this House in 1992. That bill was stalled in select committee because of concerns for Te Atiawa’s Treaty settlement. The bill was finally withdrawn in 2004, after the council agreed to sell the leasehold land to the Crown for the Crown to include it in Te Atiawa’s Treaty settlement. Following 6 years of court cases brought by the leaseholders challenging that change of direction, the Crown and the council entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement in 2010.

Ultimately, Te Atiawa negotiators decided against accepting the land in 2014. Since then, the council has worked with Te Atiawa and the community to present us with a new resolution of these issues for us to enact. The council and Te Atiawa entered into a heads of agreement on the broad principles of the bill. The council then developed the bill and consulted with the wider Waitara community. The council listened and changed aspects of its original proposal as a result of feedback, and has provided us with the bill.

Because of this heads of agreement and the tripartite discussion, I entreat parties in this House to support this bill at least through to select committee, where the Local Government and Environment Committee can call for submissions and the views of different groups can be heard before this Parliament. The New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill provides a way forward that benefits leaseholders, Te Atiawa, and the Waitara community. It is for this House to decide whether to enable Waitara to move forward, or to continue with the problems of the past.

There are three main policy drivers in this bill. Firstly, the council will vest over 40 hectares of land in Te Atiawa. This includes about 13 hectares of vacant land zoned residential in the district plan and by the coastline. Te Atiawa can use this to develop a new base in their Waitara homelands. Te Atiawa will also be acknowledged as the owner of three pieces of reserve land, with the council providing day-to-day administration. There will be joint decision-making on strategic issues for these reserves, and Te Atiawa will also have the opportunity to purchase over 30 hectares of land in Waitara in the future through rights of first refusal if the council decides to sell.

Secondly, leaseholders will have a right to freehold. They will finally be able to buy the land underneath their family homes. Rather than being bound by 21-year rent cycles and the difficulties that brings with the banks, leaseholders will be able to become part of the normal property market. This has been long sought after by leaseholders. Those who want to continue to rent can do so safe in the knowledge that they have a statutory right to freehold at a later point.

Thirdly, the proceeds from the leasehold land will be invested back into Waitara. Proceeds from about 80 percent of the land will be split evenly between New Plymouth District Council and the Taranaki Regional Council, and proceeds from the rest of the land will go solely to New Plymouth District Council. This reflects existing statutory provisions. New Plymouth District Council will create a dedicated fund administered through a new statutory board. An equal number of appointees from New Plymouth District Council and Te Atiawa will decide how the annual releases from the funds are allocated within Waitara. Taranaki Regional Council will prioritise its funds for Waitara, and Te Atiawa will have representation on its standing committees under the Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill.

Waitara will have two local authorities holding significant funds to put back into the township. Although the size of the funding will depend on many things—freeholding rates, interest rates, and so forth—New Plymouth District Council and Te Atiawa could be releasing half a million dollars a year by 2020, rising to $2 million a year by 2040. This is a significant boost to a community of 7,000 people. Waitara can be progressed positively with these funds. New Plymouth District Council and Te Atiawa will be equal partners in spending these funds for the benefit of the Waitara community. These funds could be used for a wide range of social, economic, environmental, and cultural purposes, perhaps including commemorating Waitara’s pivotal role in New Zealand’s early history.

This bill enables the competing interests in the Waitara endowment lands to be resolved to varying degrees. It is a compromise, and there remain unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. However, this bill provides a way forward to benefit Waitara, Te Atiawa, and leaseholders. I look forward to the day when Waitara becomes the jewel in the crown of North Taranaki. This bill will play a pivotal role in that journey. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā, e tika ana kia tuku mihi atu ki Te Atiawa, ki ngā hapū Manukōrihi, Ōtaraua, otirā, ngā iwi katoa o Taranaki.

Ka huri aku whakaaro ki a rātou mā i te wāhi ngaro, ki a rātou mā i hinga mai nā puta noa o Taranaki i runga i ēnei whenua, i runga i te whenua e kīia nei ko Pekapeka, otirā, ngā whenua katoa o Taranaki. E tika ana kia tuku mihi ake ki a rātou mā, otinoa ki a tātou o Te Whare nei tēnei ahau tuku mihi atu anō hoki ki tātou.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but at the same time it is apt that I accord an accolade to Te Atiawa, the hapū Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua, and indeed to all the iwi of Taranaki.

My thoughts turn to those in the place lost from view, in conjunction with all of those who have passed away throughout Taranaki on these lands and, in particular, this land called Pekapeka but indeed on all the lands of Taranaki. It is fitting that we pay a tribute to them all.]

I rise to speak on this bill, the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill. I thank the member for New Plymouth, Jonathan Young, for his explanation, in a very brief way, of the history of this issue around the Waitara lands. It, of course, goes a lot further, and that is explained in another bill before the House, the Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill.

I want to acknowledge all of the interested parties in this particular bill, and the member for New Plymouth has outlined the competing interests associated with all of those interested parties. Can I go through a list of who I think the interested parties are, and give a message out to each and every one of them. First of all, I acknowledge the leaseholders who have lived on these lands—on endowment lands with perpetual leases—who, through this bill, will have the opportunity to purchase the land that they live on. I want to acknowledge Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua as well, the original owners of this land. I cannot help but recognise the pain that they are going through right now—the pain around the loss of land from 1865. We talk about historical and intergenerational trauma; the current generation holds that trauma today. It would be wrong not to acknowledge that.

Within the settlement process, Te Atiawa received a mandate from all of its hapū, as I understand, and negotiated a settlement based on their aspirations under the mana that that mandate gave them. Could I mention at this stage that the settlement process is a flawed one, and it is incumbent upon every settlement group, every iwi that enters into that process, to understand what the process can deliver, what it will never deliver, and whether or not they can live with it. That is the most important thing in that process.

We find ourselves in this House having two bills before it. We are debating this one here around the Waitara endowment land, but there is another bill before this House that will be debated tomorrow, and that is the Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill. Within that bill the rights of Manukōrihi and the rights of Ōtaraua will be extinguished by that bill, and the settlement that they will receive for their lands is within that bill.

We on this side of the House—along with everyone in this House, I believe—believe in the endurance of all settlements, and the Te Atiawa bill, like every other settlement bill, must endure. It has been through a process, it has been accepted by their people, and one day in the near future that deed of settlement will be enabled by an Act of Parliament. But I still feel strongly for the people of Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua. Their rights under that bill will be extinguished, and I think it should be noted in this House today. They will never give up their fight to have that land returned—that is very clear. They will never forget. They will carry it generation to generation, and it is an unfortunate thing that it was not able to be settled to their satisfaction through the Te Atiawa settlement bill. But that is an issue, really, for Te Atiawa and ngā hapū o Te Atiawa.

We have our part to play as parliamentarians because we enable those settlement claims. Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa Trust is an interested party, as well, with competing interests. Through this bill there will be land transferred to Te Atiawa from the council. They will sit at the table that makes the decisions around how the money that is collected through that trust is distributed. They have an interest in that they will make up 50 percent of that trust. The New Plymouth District Council also—and I acknowledge the presence of the Mayor of New Plymouth, Andrew Judd, and councillors—has a competing interest as well, I believe. Its interest is to take into account the needs of its community, the needs of Waitara, the needs of the leaseholders, and the needs of the iwi who are within its rohe. So it has an interest as well. The Waitara community under this bill has an interest. The Waitara community will be the beneficiaries of the collection of the rents on the leasehold properties, and they will be the beneficiaries also of the sale of the leasehold lands. So they have an interest in this.

So with so many interests—conflicting interests—what is the thing that we as responsible parliamentarians should be doing? I believe, and my party believes, that the best way forward for all of the interested parties is that they make submissions to the select committee so that the bill can be thoroughly examined by the select committee and so that everyone with interests in this bill has their say. So to each one of those competing interested parties, I say to all of you that you must ensure that you have your say. You must make sure that you give the select committee compelling arguments and reasons as to why your interests should be above someone else’s. That is really up to the communities, the interested parties in this bill.

My preference actually is that this bill goes to the Māori Affairs Committee. I think it ought to go there. It is well led by Nuk Korako, and the membership of the Māori Affairs Committee would have an in-depth knowledge and skill and ability to decipher all of the issues associated with the competing interests on this bill. I highly recommend that we do that.

There are some aspirational things also about this bill. The future of Waitara—what it might look like in the future. Would it not be wonderful if we could address all of those issues through the iwi, through the hapū, through the wider Waitara community, and all of the parties interested so that we could get to a place where Waitara can truly move forward so that it can use the benefits of this trust, if that is what the people of Waitara want?

Nō reira, kāore e roa tēnei tū, kāore e kore ā te wā ka tukuna atu ētahi atu kōrero ki tēnei pire. Mā te wā ka whakarite mātou i tā mātou tū i runga i tēnei pire mēnā ka pōti, ka tautoko ai, ka whakahē ai rānei. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora mai tātou.

[Therefore, this contribution is not a long one, and without a doubt other contributions will be made on this bill. In time we will deliberate our stance on this bill and vote whether to support or oppose it. So congratulations and accolades to you collectively, my appreciation to us all.]

I would also like to acknowledge Mayor Andrew Judd and councillors McFarlane and Johnston, who are with us today. It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on this bill. The previous speaker, Adrian Rurawhe, referred to parties understanding what their needs are, and I would like to make a comment that getting to this point in this piece of legislation has taken many, many years to build. It is like doing a jigsaw, and I acknowledge the many, many parties, including the council and the people of Waitara and Te Atiawa, who have all put some conciliatory efforts into making this work.

I just want to talk today about a change in conversation that might enable us again to hear the words of Wīremu Kīngi Te Rangitake, a 19th century Waitara chief of great influence and authority. As a leader of Te Atiawa, he spoke for the original owners of these lands. Wīremu Kīngi often wrote of his wish for friendly relations with Pākehā settlers, but he did not believe he should have to sell the land to achieve this result. Just before the first shots were fired at Waitara, Wīremu Kīngi wrote a letter to Donald MacLean, the Chief Land Purchase Commissioner in the 1850s. Protesting the pressure to sell, Kīngi wrote: “These lands will not be given by us into the Governor’s and your hands, lest we resemble the sea-birds which perch upon a rock, when the tide flows the rock is covered by the sea, and the birds take flight, for they have no resting place.” But war and the legislative confiscation of the land did follow, forcing many Te Atiawa families to become the seabirds that Kīngi predicted, and those seabirds are still with us to the present day.

So in speaking to this piece of legislation, where there are many parts to the redress, I say, firstly, the council will vest over 40 hectares of land in Te Atiawa. Secondly, leaseholders will have a right to freehold, and they will finally be able to buy the land underneath their family homes. I know from my own memories that this has caused a lot of grief to a lot of people—not only the local residents of Waitara but the people going back to the 1800s—and I look forward to working through this bill to get some resolution. Thirdly, the proceeds from the leasehold land will be invested back into Waitara, and I think that is important because not only Te Atiawa but Waitara and everyone have moved forward in this process. So I am really pleased that we are actually at this point now where we can start doing something, because it has been very divisive.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

It is a pleasure to complete my call on this bill. It is a really important piece of legislation because it is going to remove those statutory restrictions and enable rental and sale proceeds to be used for the wider benefit of the Waitara community, and that is something extremely important. So it will provide lessees the option to buy their leasehold properties from the council. Under the terms of the bill, Te Atiawa will receive 13 hectares of vacant residential land that is termed the Brown Road land, titles to three reserves currently administered by the New Plymouth District Council, referred to as the transfer land, and the right of first refusal over the sites where Ranfurly Park and the Waitara Golf Club now sit, if the council wishes to dispose of either section in the next 172 years. The Waitara Golf Club, which is part of this legislation, is in the Taranaki - King Country electorate, and I just have to declare that I have played one game of golf in my life, really badly.

💬 Tim Macindoe: You were very good.

And I was very bad.

So, again, I just want to acknowledge in the short time I have got left the amount of effort that the council, Te Atiawa, and the people of Waitara have put into getting us to this point. It is a pleasure to be standing and taking a call, and I would just like to say: tūngia te ururua, kia tupu whakaritorito te tupu o te harakeke—clear away the encumbrances so that the new growth of the harakeke can flourish. It is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, tēnā koutou Te Whare nui o tēnei pō. He mihi nui ki te mana whenua o Waitara, Te Manukorihi hapū me te whānau, Te Atiawa, notably Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa, me ngā tangata Tiriti katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and greetings to you of this great House collectively this evening. I extend a huge acknowledgment to the mandated authority of Waitara, Te Manukorihi hapū and whānau, and notably the confederation of Te Ātiawa plus all Treaty people.]

Acknowledgments to Mayor Andrew Judd and the New Plymouth District Council. Mayor Andrew Judd and I walked together some of the last day of the hīkoi to Parihaka. We walked for peace. I am not sure this is peace yet. Andrew Judd and I were at a hui last week on finding an end to institutional racism. I am not sure that this bill, despite its best intentions, achieves that yet. Another hīkoi, Peace for Pekapeka, took place today. Their kaupapa is they want peace too, and they want their land back. We support that kaupapa.

The people of Waitara have a history like no other and a place in the history of Aotearoa like no other. They could change history by stepping up to healing the extreme raupatu in the rohe, which was committed against the tangata whenua. Despite the efforts of many people and the council, this bill is not the healing if it allows land to be freehold and then sold, taking away the people’s hopes for justice for ever.

The Green Party has grave concerns about the bill, but, in dialogue with Taranaki Māori women who oppose it and Te Atiawa negotiators, we have decided to support it to the select committee with no guarantee that we will vote for it any further. We do this because the voice of the least powerful hapū members who marched today must be heard by this Parliament.

However, our co-leader Metiria Turei is putting forward a second select committee nomination—that this bill go to the Māori Affairs Committee—which she will speak to in her speech on this bill. We ask the other parties to support this because, call it what we like, this is a Treaty issue. It is about breaches, violence, and colonisation against Te Atiawa hapū katoa. The Māori Affairs Committee is the best place to hear these painful truths.

This bill has been described as an effort to balance competing interests. I do not accept that. The leaseholders who accepted perpetual leasehold homes at least have the security of their leases, but the mana whenua have no security through this bill. The homes and the whenua can be sold; many will be. This is a form of alienation, a modern form and a permanent form.

Te Rangitake and the people of the land were stripped of their rights. The war against them began. The perpetual leases were not paid to them but to the Land Court. They were not deemed fit to receive their own money. They still do not get direct benefit of the rent. They get small blocks of land, and they get to be part of a committee that makes a decision about the money for the benefit of the wider Waitara community. That is not returning stolen goods. That is a compromise, and we acknowledge Te Atiawa’s effort for that compromise, and the council, and everyone. But we have not healed the wrong.

Moana Jackson says that these are not land wars that we should be addressing; they are sovereignty wars. And, actually, they continue until we Pākehā and the Crown find another way. I pray that this bill is amended strongly to address mana whenua rights at the select committee, because we cannot support it any further without that change.

When we walked to Parihaka, we attempted to build a bridge of peace through the land, but Pākehā have to step up, councils and citizens, and say that we are the ones who hold the power. We are the ones who have enjoyed the privileges of those perpetual leases and the privileges of the use of the lands, the vast quantity of land that was taken under raupatu. We actually need to be more generous than this.

I understand the dilemmas that are faced, and I understand why Te Atiawa have supported this, but read the Pekapeka history. Read how the imperial troops came. Read how the history of this country was changed by the greed and hunger for land. We cannot allow ourselves to believe that these huge compromises are the final piece. If they were the final piece there would not have been a hīkoi today. The people marched today because they want to be heard. The least we can do in this House is make sure the bill goes to the right select committee, where they have a chance to be heard, because if there is no peace in Waitara there will be no peace in Aotearoa. We have to do better and we have to do more. It is on this House and my culture to step up. It is not balancing interests; it is justice that we need to make. Kia ora koutou katoa.

Kia ora. It is a privilege for me to stand and speak to this bill. Just a couple of months ago I was in Waitara with my colleague the MP for Te Tai Hauāuru, Adrian Rurawhe, and our Labour leader, Andrew Little. We were walking up the road and actually ran into a former teacher at one of the schools I went to. Her name was Mrs Kearns. During that visit Mrs Kearns said to me: “We want to see you stand up and speak to bills about Waitara, Carmel.” Andrew Little and, I think, Adrian heard that, so here I am tonight speaking to a bill on Waitara. I do so in relation to this bill with some trepidation as I am fully aware of the tensions and competing interests in relation to this bill.

I did have the privilege of being born and raised in Waitara. I am not Māori—I am Samoan, Tongan, and New Zealand European—but with teachers like Tiri Bailey, Hone Niwa, Whero Bailey, and also Te Kauhoe Wano, who, unfortunately, has passed away, I did grow up with many insights into the history of Waitara, the atrocities that have been inflicted on the mana whenua of Waitara, the illegal and mass confiscation of land, and the impact that those atrocities have had on the generations that followed. Much of that history, those atrocities, and the impact of them have been understated in our history books. I think that is the starting point for me speaking on this bill tonight.

It is of no surprise to me that tensions have arisen in regard to this bill and in respect of what it proposes. I think it is important to reflect on what the bill is attempting to do before I go into some of the reservations that I do have. In brief, land was confiscated by the Crown from Waitara hapū in 1865. Those confiscations were illegal. In 1876 the Crown vested land in the Waitara Harbour Board and the Raleigh Town Board for harbour improvement and municipal development. During the next 70 years further land was vested in the New Plymouth District Council’s predecessors for those purposes. As a consequence of a series of local government amalgamations the land is now vested in New Plymouth District Council.

For some time, issues surrounding the council-owned land at Waitara have been divisive for the Waitara community. Some leaseholders have sought to freehold the land and Te Atiawa have argued for the return of the land. The council has argued that existing statutory restrictions that affect the Waitara endowment land are outdated and restrict the ability of the council to use the land and any income derived from it. This bill would remove those statutory restrictions and enable rental and sales proceeds to be used for the wider benefit of the Waitara community. The bill would provide lessees with the option to buy their leasehold property from the council.

That history was an overly simplistic version of events, but in the 5 minutes I have to speak about this bill I am, unfortunately, unable to do justice to the history. Just last week the New Plymouth District Council and Taranaki Regional Council met with us, with members of our caucus, to provide a very thorough briefing on this issue, and I acknowledge them for that. I acknowledge those who have worked on this issue—some for decades. I also acknowledge tonight that we do have councillors here—Craig McFarlane and Colin Johnston—and we also have the Mayor of New Plymouth, Andrew Judd, who is absolutely passionate about this issue as well.

As my colleague has said, we are supporting this bill to the select committee, but there is no guarantee at this stage that we will support it the whole way through. We are absolutely aware of the competing interests here. We are absolutely aware of some of the individuals who have stepped up from the hapū in Waitara, and we need to take all of those voices into consideration. Some who are big critics of this particular bill and what it is attempting to do might question why we in the House are even supporting it to the select committee, but I think it is important—and my colleagues on this side of the House believe it is important—that we hear from all of the stakeholders, we hear from the leaseholders, we hear from the community of Waitara, and we hear from the very people who come from the hapū of Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua. And we can hear from them on this issue only if we allow this to go to a select committee. I do believe that this is not one of those issues that will be used as a political football in this House and that we all have the best intentions here to work towards a good result for Waitara, for the hapū in Waitara, and for all those who are affected by this in Waitara. So we work together in good faith.

I do acknowledge my colleague and the MP for Te Tai Hauāuru, Adrian Rurawhe, who was our lead on the side of the House for this. I absolutely acknowledge the fact that he has his head around the detail on this and will continue to lead us in respect of this issue. So we will support this bill to the select committee and then we look forward to receiving the submissions from the many different groups that have a vested interest in what is happening here. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā, nō reira huri noa i Te Whare nei he mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Ā, tēnei te mihi ki Te Kaunihera o Ngāmotu. Ngā mihi, nau mai, haere mai ki Te Whare Pāremata ki a koutou Te Kaunihera o Ngāmotu. Nō reira, e mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and so acknowledgments to you all throughout the House. I extend a welcome to the New Plymouth District Council. Acknowledgments, salutations, welcome to Parliament House to you, the council of New Plymouth. Therefore, I commend you all.]

It is indeed my pleasure to be able to speak in the first reading of the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill. I am speaking here as part of the Government but also as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, particularly around a perceived issue of whether this bill should be at the Māori Affairs Committee or at the Local Government and Environment Committee. My whakaaro here is that we can show true kotahitanga in the way that, first of all, the Māori Affairs Committee is dealing with the Te Atiawawa ki Taranaki Treaty settlement bill. What better way to actually show that kotahitanga, and particularly working in with an organisation that truly believes in a resolution. To me, in doing that, it is important that we actually travel this road, we go on this journey together, as the Māori Affairs Committee to do our work with the Te Atiawawa Claims Settlement Bill and then also allow Te Kaunihera-ā-Rohe o Ngāmotu, or the New Plymouth District Council, to actually do their work so that we are actually hoe-ing this waka together in the right direction. So that is my whakaaro on that situation around where this bill should actually find its home.

I want to also start with acknowledging Jonathan Young. Jonathan is the very hard-working, locally connected MP for New Plymouth, and I want to congratulate him on the work he has done along with the New Plymouth District Council to bring this bill to the House.

This bill addresses some land issues in Waitara, an area that has been the site of some of the most contentious episodes in New Zealand history. It was in 1865 when land in Waitara was confiscated from Te Atiawa by the Crown. It is a wrong that is only now being corrected, with the Te Atiawawa Claims Settlement Bill that is currently before this House.

The situation in Waitara now is that much of the town’s land is vested in the council as an endowment, but in a way that heavily restricts how the land may be used. One-quarter of all homes in Waitara are on this land, with a perpetual lease. The residents of these homes have long sought to freehold their land but are currently not allowed to do so. The income that the council receives from these leases can be used only in very specific ways that are not necessarily what the community needs.

There are three main groups with competing interests in the land: Te Atiawa would like their land returned—ideally, all of it—leaseholders would like the power to freehold their land, and the council would like to be able to use the funds from leases or the freeholding process. This bill is a compromise that balances these competing aims through the following three main provisions. The council will vest over 40 hectares of land in Te Atiawa, allowing the iwi to add to the economic base they will begin building with in the upcoming Treaty settlement. The leaseholders will also gain a right to freehold, and proceeds from the leasehold land will be vested back into Waitara. That is the really important part of this. A lot of the land that is vested back into Waitara through the New Plymouth District Council and Taranaki Regional Council—so a lot of the administration, statutory boards, equal appointees from the New Plymouth District Council—is actually about kotahitanga. It is about actually working together as part of the completion of this particular process.

Te Atiawa would like their land returned, and we know that, but they have actually agreed, even in discussions and kōrero with them during the Treaty settlement bill—they actually see a true resolution coming out of here, working together in unity with the council itself. I think when we look at the commercial redress from this bill, actually everyone wins. It is estimated that this could result in half a million dollars per year going back into the community by 2020. So it is a win-win—you know, $2 million by 2040. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, tēnā hoki tātou e noho nei i roto i Te Whare nei. Kei te tautoko i ngā mihi i mihingia ki wā tātou manuhiri e noho nā kei runga, nā reira, e Te Koromatua me ngā mema o Te Kaunihera, nau mai, haere mai.

[Thank you, and acknowledgments as well to us seated here in this House. I endorse the tributes accorded to our visitors seated above, and so welcome to you, Mr Mayor and members of the council, come hither.]

I take this opportunity of supporting the sentiments of welcome to the mayor and members of his council. Can I say from the outset that recent events that have seen the mayor make the decision to not stand again, I think, reflect on the situation surrounding the history of this land and the divisive thinking amongst members of that particular community. I think there are enough compelling reasons to have this bill referred to the Māori Affairs Committee, but at the end of the day it will be the decision of this House as to whether or not that should be the case.

I want to say from the outset that this is like a settlement bill. It is not a settlement bill in the sense that we have come to know them—and which we will know more of tomorrow, and, hopefully, on Friday—but this certainly has the elements of a settlement. As has been articulated by previous speakers, there are three parties involved: leaseholders, the original owners, of course, and the local body. Quite clearly, because of the position taken by the descendants of the original owners, we have got to the situation where this bill has come before the House.

I want to commend the people of Te Atiawa. Like all settlement bills, the iwi involved do make some very, very great sacrifices. Although they may have been offered the total land block for a sum that may seem a bit high—but, in context, I think was pretty low—they chose not to accept that offer, and now we have got to the stage where this bill will see at least 40 hectares returned to them. I want to remind this House that in the late 1980s or early 1990s, there were—and the farmers in the area will appreciate this—perpetual leases on farmland known as the west coast land leases, where farmers had similar arrangements, albeit in relation to farmland, to the leaseholders whom we are talking about in this bill. That problem was resolved. It was resolved by the Crown making some recompense to the farmers to allow them to forgo their perpetual right to lease that land. In fact, originally, the Māori landowners were not offered anything. I can say with pride that there was one party, which is in this House, that was then responsible for ensuring that the iwi of Taranaki received compensation as well.

With the time that I have got left to me, I want to say that New Zealand First will certainly be supporting this bill to the select committee, because I think it is going to be a very interesting time for this bill during that process. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, kia ora tātou katoa. Ka mihi rā ki te āhuatanga o ngā kōrero, ki ngā manuhiri kua tae mai i tēnei pō, haere mai, ka mutu ki a tātau e noho nei, ā, i roto i tō tātou Whare.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and salutations to us all. I acknowledge the tenor of the contributions, and to the visitors who have arrived here this evening, I welcome you and, furthermore, us seated here in this House of ours.]

Can I join with other speakers in acknowledging the member who is sponsoring this bill, Jonathan Young, and thank him for the opportunity to meet with the New Plymouth District Council and with Mayor Andrew Judd, who came to my office last week to give us some overview about this particular bill—and members of the council as well.

I have got to say that I know this area well. I know many of the people involved, and I heard Carmel Sepuloni talking about Te Kauhoe Wano, a good friend. So it is nice to know those connections—and, of course, your connection there too, Mr Deputy Speaker, to Te Tai Hauāuru.

What I said to the council and to the mayor was that in these sorts of cases, if iwi will give support to these sorts of bills, then we are prepared to give support as well. This week has been sort of a strange week. At the beginning of the week we had a hīkoi from Ngāti Ruanui coming down to tell us that they wanted no more mining on the west coast. We also had a hīkoi in Waitara, today, I think, at Ōwae Marae, where a number of the hapū members were a little bit unhappy with decisions made by their trusts, and I will come to them shortly. We have also had the debacle with regard to no discussions on bills on Friday, and then, of course, today we have this bill, so Taranaki is in the limelight for this particular week.

Be that as it may, I know many of the people involved had to come to some sort of a decision about how we are going to go with this particular bill. On the one hand, we have a trust, Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa Trust, which is a post-settlement governance entity. It is a private trust with the purpose of receiving Treaty settlement assets, and holding, managing, and administering the trust fund for the benefit of its members.

In August 2014 the district council and the trust entered into an agreement to start having the discussion about the Waitara endowment lands. Since entering into the heads of agreement, both parties have been engaging—and I heard that story very much from the mayor and the council members and representatives, and I also took the opportunity to ring those of Te Atiawa to try to see where things had landed.

On the one hand, I know that there are people who disagree with this particular bill—absolutely—because they were marching in the streets of Waitara today. I have got to say that this is not about Treaty settlements; this is about a specific issue with regard to the endowment lands. But, in a sense, they are actually almost tied together because they came about from raupatu, so you cannot get away from that.

On the one hand, the group that is stuck with this particular situation—and there are all sorts of players in it: the leaseholders, the council, the Government, Te Atiawa, those opposed, the hapū, the rūnanga, those who signed it a fair few years ago, and those who are now stuck with having to make decisions. It is not a nice situation.

I have to say that under the situation that we have, the Māori Party has no choice but to support the bill in its first reading. I endorse the comments that have been made already by people like Carmel Sepuloni and Pita Paraone. Why? To allow the iwi to come forward and have their say. After that, I have got to say—I rang Mayor Andrew Judd and I told him, and I do not know whether I have caught up with the member Jonathan Young—all bets are off. I am not too sure. We have just got to see what is going to happen after that.

It will be disastrous if we cannot advance it, but on the other hand, Te Atiawa, through the trust, has also said that they have some concerns. In fact, they set some of those out to me. So, although on the one hand they do want to advance and they say specifically that in terms of the discussion with Te Atiawa, it has been about the transfer of some land in Waitara to Te Atiawa, the right of leaseholders to freehold their property, the lifting of restrictions on how to proceed from the endowment lands and how they can be used, the establishment of a statutory board, etc., etc.—there are other bits and pieces in the bill. In the short time I have, I am not going to go into them.

Te Atiawa say that there actually are some key outstanding issues that they want to take up. For example, in the current bill there is the appointment of the chair of the joint board by the council. They suggest that actually they could leave it over to the board itself, as opposed to the council making the appointment—leave it to the board. They do not necessarily want to do it themselves. They say that there is no ability for Te Atiawa to have a first right of refusal over residential and commercial properties that the council may dispose of into the future. Of course, when you are talking land in Taranaki, these sorts of issues are serious stuff. In respect of the ability of the Taranaki Regional Council to apply its portion of the proceeds from the land outside Waitara, that is a debatable issue that they do not feel very comfortable about.

There are other bits and pieces that will come up in the select committee. I am hoping, of course, as we refer it on to it—and I am comfortable with the Māori Affairs Committee—that we can actually tease some of those issues apart and get a better feel from the community, and in particular about Te Atiawa. I do not envy the select committee the job because it is a hard job, and in one way or another not everyone is going to win, but the hope will be that by putting it into a select committee process, allowing the process to go ahead, we will hear the views of the community and the council and then be able to make informed decisions from there. Ka nui te mihi, kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe, otirā, ngā mema o Te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, but at the same time my acknowledgments to us all, members of this House, greetings.]

I am pleased to take a call on the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill, and can I too first acknowledge Mayor Judd and his fellow councillors who are here in the gallery. I also want to acknowledge the Minister for Māori Development, the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell, particularly for his comment around supporting this bill going to the Māori Affairs Committee. I am a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is a very, very hard-working select committee, but I do want to acknowledge that although this bill is not a Treaty settlement bill, it is still addressing very fundamental parts of every Treaty settlement that we have in this House, which are land loss and how land was taken.

If we look at the history in this case, I am reminded of my own iwi of Rongowhakaata in Gisborne in the 1860s, when wars were declared on the locals in Gisborne, or Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa, in about 1865. When I was reading this particular history of Taranaki, I could see an absolute resemblance to my own in Gisborne. A million acres was taken. Our land battle over there was called Waerenga a Hika, and in Taranaki, it was Pekapeka. We have got to acknowledge and understand our own history and those wars, because at that time there was a need to get more land for our settling communities, and I am pretty sure that this House had a role in that.

So let us fast forward. We are now in 2016 and, of course, the land that is in question here resides with the council, but we cannot overlook the fact of the history of how the council came upon that land. So here we are debating, and I support this side. We will go to a select committee and we want all the stakeholders—and they are numerous, and they have been covered by previous speakers in this House. There are the leaseholders, there is the community of Waitara, there is the city council, and, of course, there are the hapū of Waitara itself.

Yes, we are dealing with the Treaty settlement bills through a separate process, but they are actually indivisible, because we are talking about whenua, and we are also talking about a history that happened to a particular people in this country—namely, the hapū of Waitara. By simply saying “Well, we addressed your issues through the Te Ātiawa settlement. This is a completely different matter.”, I think we are overlooking, and I think we are being naive.

I do want to acknowledge that when I read through the purpose of this bill, I can see the concessions that have been made by the council in trying to set this joint committee up, which will have both Te Atiawa representatives and the council on it, and I want to acknowledge that. But I do believe that we have to actually allow the hapū, the community, the councillors, and everybody else the right to have a say on what this actually means. That is why I wanted to make a contribution around looking forward, and supporting and acknowledging the member for New Plymouth, Jonathan Young, for bringing this bill to the House—and, honestly, like everybody else has said, it is like a can of worms, and I want to acknowledge everybody’s attempt to try to address it, from the council to the local people, to the local member, and to my own colleague Adrian Rurawhe here.

It is a can of worms, but that is New Zealand’s history. That is New Zealand’s history. It is a can of worms, and we cannot put up that can of worms and think that we can deal with it in a linear way. There are interrelated relationships, and our history is tied up in this bill—this bill reflects a part of our history that led to a whole lot of hurt and a sense of loss of identity. If we, through this House, can enable the healing of that history by giving all those parties a fair shot, then I think we have done our job not just as parliamentarians but as legislators.

So, with that short contribution, I really do hope that the member takes on board the comments by the Minister for Māori Development and supports this bill going to the Māori Affairs Committee, simply because of the tikanga around awhi and manaaki—and supports those hapū, particularly, to come forth and share their story about the impact of this, as well as all the other vested stakeholders. Kia ora tātou.

I have submitted to the Clerk a nomination for the select committee for this bill and that nomination is that the bill goes to the Māori Affairs Committee, not to the Local Government and Environment Committee. Before I go into the reasons why, I just want to describe the process of what will happen with that nomination. I am urging members to vote—actually, I am urging one of two things: either Jonathan Young may well want to change his motion and send the bill to the Māori Affairs Committee, and it is in his power to do that, or, if he chooses not to, I urge members to vote against the motion to send the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee. If that motion fails and the No vote wins, then my nomination to send it to the Māori Affairs Committee will come to the floor of the House and we can vote for it to go to the Māori Affairs Committee.

This is not an attempt to hijack what the council is trying to do. It is enormously controversial, what the council is doing with this land, and although the parties in Waitara have been trying to work together to get it to this point, we too have been in contact with Te Atiawa and we know that there are still very serious concerns. We know that there are concerns from others in the community who marched today and who are deeply fearful that this bill will be, in effect, another raupatu.

So then the question is: which of the select committees in this Parliament has the expertise to deal with both the legal issues that arise out of a local bill and the Treaty issues, the Māori issues, that arise out of this bill? There is only one such committee that has the general legal expertise to deal with legislation and has the specific expertise to work on issues where there is a deep Māori complexity—Treaty complexity—to it. This bill has that complexity, and this is why the Māori Affairs Committee members should be the ones who consider this bill. Only they have the breadth of experience across all those stakeholders that Te Ururoa Flavell talked about and others have talked about to make sure that all of those interests are, as some have described, balanced—I do not agree with that approach, but that may be some way—but, more importantly, that all of those people who are involved with this legislation have a place to go where the members who sit on that committee understand the complexity of all of those issues.

I do not think we should be sending this bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee, because those members do not have the experience of dealing with complex Tiriti issues around land confiscations and raupatu. That select committee is not designed for that purpose. The Māori Affairs Committee and the members on that committee are themselves legislators. Those members know how to deal with general law and they are members of other select committees—as with Meka Whaitiri, who is on the Local Government and Environment Committee—but they also have the particular expertise that will need to be applied to this bill if all of the stakeholders are to have some comfort that they will get a hearing where they are understood and where the issues that they bring will be understood by the members in their consideration.

Because of the potential of this bill to be in another raupatu against iwi who have already suffered enormous harm—as we in this House know; we have dealt with this before—it is absolutely critical that that iwi has the opportunity to put its case to those who understand the complexity of it, which is why we are putting forward this second nomination. I have enormous faith in the Māori Affairs Committee to be able to deal with the complexity of this bill. I believe that if this Parliament does agree—as we seem to have been—that there are serious Treaty issues here to deal with, it is the right thing to do to send it to the committee that is best competent to deal with Māori issues and with the legal issues inherent in it.

And I would hope, actually, that the council will agree. I hope that the council itself, which has been moving on issues—and there has been a lot of controversy and discussion about Māori issues through this council—would agree that it is important for the Māori issues, the Treaty issues, to be dealt with fairly, by those who have the most expertise. So it may well be that in just a few minutes’ time we have an opportunity to do a good thing for the community and make sure that this bill has the proper hearing that it should have, with the select committee that has the expertise to deal with it competently. Thank you very much.

I would like to thank all the contributing speakers. Thank you very much for the genuine contributions and, in particular, for your depth of understanding of the issues. I believe that means that we as a Parliament can make some positive progress, as best as possible, on understanding the incredible complexity of this bill.

As I stated in my first speech, the confiscation of land occurred in 1865, but it started prior to that. It goes right back into the nub of the relationship between Europeans and Māori, and has been, in a sense, very much a part of the DNA and development of this nation. Coming to this place, to this House, to look at this issue, is it a settlement bill? I think it is bigger than that. It is a nation bill. It is a bill that is about New Zealand. Yes, it is addressing the confiscations. It is addressing all of those issues. It is addressing how the New Plymouth District Council has sought to work with all the competing parties around this to come to a conclusion.

Thank you to Adrian Rurawhe, who identified the various competing elements of the community. It is sad that we have a reasonably small community of 7,000 people who have such competing interests. Would it not be great if, through this process, we can work in a very integral way so that we could see a community come together and collaborate and not be competitive but be supportive? Thank you, Carmel Sepuloni, for your very good comments and your deep understanding, not only because you have lived there but because you have also kept in contact with many of the people. I think that is a good, good thing. Thank you very much, Catherine Delahunty, for your comments and the willingness that you have to support this bill to select committee. We have a bill on the table, and I think that what is incredibly important is that we all commit to sit around that table and discuss these issues.

I have heard the requests that this bill go to a select committee other than the one I nominated. You would have heard and seen us having quite a discussion here amongst ourselves, and I have been in discreet contact with the originators of the bill. There is an openness for it to go to the Māori Affairs Committee. In this regard, I think I could say that this is a measure of our willingness to cooperate around this and to try to find a common way through.

I think that what we want to see is this community and the past resolved. We want to have a vision for the future. We want to see a people who have been injured healed. We want to see people today who have a sense that Waitara is their home—both Māori and non-Māori. We want them to be able to feel settled and to feel, together, that it is their community. Would it not be great if this Parliament could help in that process?

I commend this bill to the House, and we make the recommendation that it go to the Māori Affairs Committee. Kia ora.

Bill read a first time.

The question was put that the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Question not agreed to.

I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill.

The question was put that the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill be referred to the Māori Affairs Committee.

Question agreed to.