Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill

I move, That the Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill be now read a third time. I extend a warm welcome to members of Ngāti Pūkenga who have travelled from Tauranga, from Maketū, Manaia, Pakikaikutu, and from further afar to be here on this very important day. The iwi has had to overcome many obstacles to get to this point, but it has been worth the wait.

As I always do during a settlement bill speech, I want to acknowledge the driving forces behind each settlement, starting with those who led the way many years ago and who are no longer with us. I particularly want to mention the late Wīremu Ōhia. As I have said before in this House, he was a great leader, both in Tauranga Moana and on the national stage, and his vision of people working together paved the way to where we are today. I also want to pay tribute, again, to Te Awanuiārangi Black, who left us late last year. During his short life he made fine contributions in many fields. Among other qualities, he was a staunch advocate for Te Reo Māori, and was determined to make a difference for his people through his involvement at the regional level and also on numerous boards. He was committed to development for Māori in general, and his iwi in particular, and that is why he became a negotiator for Ngāti Pūkenga. Today, this bill is the realisation of his aspirations and the aspirations of his tupuna before him.

To those who worked so hard to make today possible, I offer my most sincere thanks. The settlement represents years of hard work by the negotiating team, and I acknowledge Shane Ashby, Harry Mikaere, Āreta Gray, Dominic Wilson, and Rāhera Ōhia. For the past 7 years they showed an unwavering willingness to engage constructively with the Crown, even during difficult periods of the negotiation. The Crown and Ngāti Pūkenga signed a deed of settlement at Te Whetū o Te Rangi Marae on a very fine Sunday afternoon in April 2013, over 4 years ago. Since then, while their iwi-specific settlement was on the backburner, they continued to engage with the Crown and with their neighbours on the collective settlements in Tauranga and in Hauraki. Today I salute them for their fortitude and determination, and for remaining steadfast in their commitment to settle in the face of some difficulties.

I am not going to go over the settlement package in too much detail, as some of my colleagues may want to talk further about this in their speeches. What I want to do is take some time to articulate and record the history of Ngāti Pūkenga and their interactions with the Crown over the past 170 years. That history is the reason we are here today. In April 1840 a leader of Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Kou o Rēhua, signed the Treaty at Maungatapu. He expected that the Crown would protect his people’s rights, property, and privileges. He spoke on many occasions of the partnership that he believed would flow from the Treaty.

A few years later, as the New Zealand Wars unfolded, Ngāti Pūkenga did not support the fight against the Crown after the invasion of the Waikato in 1863, despite many iwi supporting the Kīngitanga. They did not fight a year later when the war came to Tauranga Moana after Crown troops attacked Pūkehinahina. Ngāti Pūkenga, as an iwi, chose instead to uphold the Treaty, and did not take part in any of the conflicts. Despite assuring the iwi it would scrupulously respect their interests, the Crown, through the enactment of the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, confiscated a very large part of the district, thus unjustly extinguishing all of Ngāti Pūkenga’s customary interests in Tauranga.

It is important to acknowledge that this settlement relates to people whose lives were irretrievably affected by Crown actions. Ngāti Pūkenga lost much of their kāinga mātua through the confiscation of their lands at Tauranga Moana, and were dispersed between their four small and scattered kāinga as a result. Despite upholding the law and the Treaty, Ngāti Pūkenga were severely impacted by the loss of their land and the loss of their mana. They did not receive the same opportunity as others to protect and nurture their interests in Tauranga Moana. They became dependent on lands gifted to them by other iwi. Even then the Crown failed to respect the rangatiratanga of Ngāti Pūkenga in their remaining lands. The Crown continued to fail them during the 19th century and did not protect their tribal interests from the impact of the individualisation of Māori land titles. It is a testament to their tenacity that they have maintained a presence in such disconnected areas as Manaia and, further afar, Pakikaikutu.

Last month we commemorated the 154th anniversary of colonial forces invading Mangatawhiri. This battle marked the beginning of the Waikato War, which was a defining conflict in New Zealand history. Ensuing battles in various parts of our land shaped our country and its people. We cannot build a relationship or move forward together unless we acknowledge what happened in the past, whether it happened at Parihaka or Mangatawhiri. As we prepare ourselves for the first national commemoration day on 28 October, today is a good opportunity for the Crown to acknowledge the errors of the past and to make amends for its actions or omissions.

Members who are present in the House know I say this for every settlement, but the loss Ngāti Pūkenga suffered can never be fully compensated for by the Crown, and much of what was lost simply cannot be returned. However, the people of Ngāti Pūkenga have accepted the redress contained in the settlement and, in doing so, have decided to look to the future. The financial and commercial redress provided to Ngāti Pūkenga seeks to recognise the losses suffered by them. They are going to receive $7 million, plus interest, as well as commercial redress properties and rights of first refusal over specific land.

The cultural redress aims to recognise their traditional, historical, cultural, and spiritual associations with places and sites in their area of interest. This includes the vesting of cultural redress properties, protocols, and statutory acknowledgments, and funding to support projects involving cultural revitalisation. I am pleased to hear that Ngāti Pūkenga has already got on with it and inaugurated their new wharenui in Manaia earlier this year.

I believe the package will help reconnect Ngāti Pūkenga with its environment and acknowledge the mana and the rangatiratanga of Ngāti Pūkenga in its four kāinga. During the second reading speeches, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta pointed out that it is not the size of the settlement that matters but how purposeful it is and how suited it is to support the vision of the iwi, and, with respect, I wholeheartedly agree with her.

Throughout the negotiations, Ngāti Pūkenga have worked very hard and shown a willingness to move forward, even when navigating some tricky waters. They have laid a new foundation for their relationship with the Crown and are now positioning themselves as a key player in Tauranga, which, as we all know, is growing at such a fast pace. Ngāti Pūkenga are ready for their next journey and, thus, without any further delay, I commend the bill to the House.

Tuatahi māku hei whakapuaretia āku nei kōrero i te ata nei, e mihi kau ana ki tō tātau kaikarakia nāna nei i tīmata te wahanga nei i runga i te huarahi tika. Nā reira, tēnā rā koe e te tuakana, e Nuk. Ā, Ngāti Pūkenga, tēnā rā koutou, nau mai, haere mai ki roto o tēnei Whare, haere mai ki raro i te tuanui o tō tātau Whare. I tēnei wā e whakatau ana i ō koutou kerēme. Kua rongohia ki roto i Te Whare ngā ingoa o wētahi kua wehe atu ki Te Pō. Nā reira, ko Awanuiārangi tētahi, ko Monte Ōhia tētahi, me te tini te mano hoki nā reira, kei te tangi, kei te tangi, kei te tangi tonu tātau katoa i a rātau. Engari rātau ki a rātau, ko tātau ki a tātau anō ngā kanohi ora, tēnā koutou.

Ā, Ngāti Pūkenga, tēnei ahau he tamaiti nō Te Tai Tokerau e mihi kau ana ki a koutou. E rua ngā take e hiahia ana te whakakōrerohia i te ata nei. Ko tērā o ngā kāinga kei roto i a mātau o Te Tai Tokerau a Pakikaikutu. I te pānuitanga tuarua o tēnei pire, nāku i whakamāramatia ngā āhuatanga o taua kāinga. He aha te take he kāinga o Ngāti Pūkenga kei roto i a mātau o Te Tai Tokerau? I whakamāramatia e au i te kōrero e pā ana ki tērā o koutou i haere, i peka atu ki te tūtaki i tana tuahine, ko Te Rore, te wahine o Wharepoaka. I tana taenga ki uta, kua haere ia te tūtaki i tana tuahine engari, tētahi nanakia nō roto o Ngāti Wai, horekau nō Ngāpuhi, ā, i patungia, i kōhurungia taua tangata. I runga i tēnā, nā taua tupuna, a Te Tirarau, i runga i te mōhioranga kua hē taua mate, nāna i hoatu taua wahanga, taua kāinga a Pakikaikutu ki a Ngāti Pūkenga, kia taea ai e Ngāti Pūkenga te noho ki waenganui i a mātau o Te Tai Tokerau.

Ko taua kōrero, he kōrero hei honohono i a koutou ki a mātau, engari, tērā atu tetahi kōrero e pā ana ki tērā pakanga i roto i a mātau o Ruapekapeka. I te wā i roto a Kāwiti, i roto a Hone Heke i te mura o te ahi, kua huri a Hone Heke me te pātai: kei hea a Kaharau? Arā, kei hea ōna whanaunga nō te taitamatāne? He aha te take a Hokianga, kīhai i haere mai ki te āwhina i a mātau o roto o Taumārere? Kua puta te tono mō ētahi kia haere mai hei āwhina, hei whawhai pokowhiwhi ki te pokowhiwhi ki a Ngāti Hine. Wēnei i tae ake ko Ngāti Manu, Te Kapotai, Patukeha, wētahi nō Mangakāhia. Kua tae ake hoki a Ngāti Pūkenga.

Nā reira, tēnei ahau he uri o aua rangatira o Ngāpuhi, e mihi kau ana ki ō koutou tūpuna i haere mai i taua wā ki te whawhai tahi, pokowhiwhi ki te pokowhiwhi, nā reira, i runga i tēnā, tēnei ahau e tuku atu i tēnei tono ki a koutou kia haere mai ki roto i a Ruapekapeka ā 28 Oketopa, kia whakamaumaharatia e tātau, ō tātāu tūpuna nā rātau i whakaheke ō rātau toto i runga o te maunga o Haruru Tapuwae. Nā reira Ngāti Pūkenga, tēnei mātau e whakawhetai ana ki a koutou, ki ō koutou tūpuna mō aua āwhina nā rātau ki a mātau, nā i runga i tēnā ka huri ake ahau ki te pire.

[The first thing for me in terms of opening my comments this morning is to immediately acknowledge our prayer-giver, who began this part on the right track. Therefore, thank you very much, elder colleague, Nuk. And now to you, Ngāti Pūkenga, acknowledgments to you collectively, welcome, come hither into this House, come here under the roof of our House. At this moment, I formally welcome your claims. Some names of individuals who have departed to the void have been heard in the House. Therefore Awanuiārangi was one, Monte Ōhia another, and countless, thousands more also, and so all of us continue to mourn, grieve, and lament them. But allow them, the dead, to remain there among themselves while we the living remain here amongst ourselves, acknowledgments to you.

And so to you, Ngāti Pūkenga, here I am, this child from North Auckland, paying you collectively a tribute indeed. There are two matters that I want to address this morning. One is about those settlements amongst us in North Auckland at Pakikaikutu. In the second reading of this bill, I was the one who explained the circumstances about that settlement. What is the reason for a Ngāti Pūkenga settlement being located amongst us in Northland? I explained the story about one of yours who branched off to visit his sister, Te Rore, the wife of Wharepoaka. When he got inland, he went to meet his sister, but a scoundrel from within Ngāti Wai, not from within Ngāpuhi, killed and murdered that man. Consequently, when that ancestor, Te Tirarau, found out that killing was wrongful, he handed over that part, that settlement, Pakikaikutu, to Ngāti Pūkenga, so that they, Ngāti Pūkenga, could stay amongst us of North Auckland.

That story is one that links you to us, but there is another one, which relates to that battle amongst us of Ruapekapeka. At the time when Kāwiti and Hone Heke were at the heat of battle, Hone Heke turned and asked: where is Kaharau? In other words, where are the relatives of the younger brother? What is Hokianga’s reason for not coming to help us of Taumārere? The request had gone out for others to come and assist to help fight Ngāti Hine, shoulder to shoulder. These were the ones who turned up: Ngāti Manu, Te Kapotai, Patukeha, and some from Mangakāhia. Ngāti Pūkenga also arrived.

So here I am, a relative of those esteemed ones of Ngāpuhi, acknowledging your ancestors who came at that time to fight as one, shoulder to shoulder, and as a consequence of that, I extend this invitation to you collectively to come to Ruapekapeka on 28 October, so that we can celebrate and remember our ancestors who shed their blood on the mountain of Haruru Tapuwae. And so our huge appreciation to you, Ngāti Pūkenga, and your ancestors for that assistance of theirs to us, and as a result of that I now turn to the bill.]

Ngāti Pūkenga, it must be acknowledged that as an iwi you did not participate in the war in Tauranga because your tūpuna were committed to upholding the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and it was the Crown that was ultimately responsible for the outbreak of war in Tauranga in 1864. The actions of the Crown were a breach of Te Tiriti. As a result, since that time you have all been disadvantaged by the actions of the Crown. The confiscation and raupatu at Tauranga Moana and the Tauranga District Lands Acts of 1867 and 1868 unjustifiably extinguished the customary title of Te Tāwera Ngāti Pūkenga and the land within that confiscation district. It breached Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its principles.

The Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has set out a lot of the history, and we always turn to talk about the compensation. We keep saying that compensation is just a fraction of the value of the worth of what happened. We all acknowledge it is totally unfair, but we also acknowledge that we must move on from here. We always use Tainui and Ngāi Tahu as examples of what iwi can do when they settle and have some pūtea just to start and grow the wealth and well-being of their people—of their iwi and their hapū. On that note, we wish the same for Ngāti Pūkenga, and that from here on in it is a new leaf, a new start, and a new beginning—always remembering what happened and never forgetting it, lest we repeat those sorts of actions.

Ngāti Pūkenga, this is a great day for you. It is a great day for Māoridom, because your success is also our success. Our whakapapa is interconnected—Mr Speaker, if you did not quite pick up on what I was saying in Māori. At the Battle of Ruapekapeka, when Hone Heke was under siege, he asked “Where is Kaharau?”, meaning: “Where are the people of Hokianga? They should be coming to help their relations over on the other side of the island, in the Bay of Islands.” Some tribes did turn up—Ngāti Manu, Te Kapotai, Te Patukeha, a few individuals from Mangakāhia Valley—but also Ngāti Pūkenga arrived, to help Hone Heke and Kāwiti at the great Battle of Ruapekapeka, which ended the Land Wars in the Tai Tokerau area. It is just fitting that they are here today and that I can extend the invitation—because on 28 October we are beginning the commemoration of the Māori Land Wars, and the first commemoration is at Ruapekapeka, and it is an opportunity to extend the invitation to them. Their ancestors and our ancestors fought shoulder to shoulder and shed blood at Ruapekapeka. For that, Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi are eternally grateful. Without a doubt, they would be guests of honour up at Ruapekapeka on that day.

I will not drag things out, other than to say that it is a pleasure and an honour to be able to speak on this bill, and to acknowledge you all. Thank you very much for coming down to Wellington from Tauranga and Pakikaikutu, that little bastion of Ngāti Pūkenga amongst us, up in the Tai Tokerau. Nā reira tātau mā, huri rauna tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātau katoa.

[And so greetings and acknowledgments to you collectively and to us all throughout.]

Tēnā koe. E koro mā, e kui mā, e rau rangatira mā o Ngāti Pūkenga, ngā mokopuna hoki, ka nui te mihi atu ki a koutou, nau mai, haere mai ki te rā whakahirahira, kia ora.

[Elderly men and womenfolk, esteemed ones of Ngāti Pūkenga, and grandchildren as well, there is much acknowledgment to you. Welcome and come hither to the highly important day, greetings.]

I stand to deliver a speech that was given to me today by the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, Nuk Korako. He has had to go. His father-in-law passed in Ahitereiria, and so he flies out very shortly to Australia. Without any further ado, I too want to add my congratulations to Ngāti Pūkenga on this third and final reading, and so I will now read out the speech that was to be delivered by the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee.

It is a significant day in the eyes of Ngāti Pūkenga iwi today—to finally witness their Treaty settlement bill being read a final time. This comes 15 months after the bill was first introduced to the House, and more than 4 years since the deed was signed. But it reflects many more years of hard work on the part of Ngāti Pūkenga to get to this stage. Their time has finally arrived, and Ngāti Pūkenga is about to begin a new journey of making this settlement work for them and for their future.

I want to acknowledge the negotiators who worked on this settlement. When the chair last checked on the Ngāti Pūkenga website, this team was described as “the wedge battle formation”. It is made up of Rāhera Ōhia, Shane Ashby, the late Awanui Black, Harry Haerengarangi Mikaere, Āreta Gray, and Dominic Wilson—ka mihi.

I also want to acknowledge the Crown’s chief negotiator on this settlement, Dame Patsy Reddy, who I am sure will be delighted that, after her work on this settlement, she will soon have the opportunity to sign the settlement off in the legislative procedure.

I want to acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, whose vision, drive, and intensive work programmes are what make this Government’s astounding progress on Treaty settlement bills possible. Just look at last night, when we saw the incredible foresight at play when we completed the second reading of the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill. It was not a Treaty settlement bill—it was a local bill—but it had a similar outcome for Te Atiawa on land claims.

Ngāti Pūkenga suffered extensive land confiscation, as we have heard, by the Crown in the 19th century. Even when the now landless iwi received gifts of land from other iwi, the Crown’s individualisation of titles resulted in the alienation of that land. In our modern world, it is hard to imagine the level of bad faith exercised by the Crown to iwi like Ngāti Pūkenga. This was an iwi that thought it could place its trust in the Crown, which signed the Treaty of Waitangi, and in a Governor who promised that it would scrupulously respect Ngāti Pūkenga’s interest. As we now know from history, the promised scruples were in short supply. Ngāti Pūkenga were fragmented, spread throughout the wide area, and even now face challenges in working together as a distinct entity.

I want to acknowledge the strong leadership. This has brought together iwi members from areas as distant as Whangarei, the Coromandel, Maketū, and Tauranga to work together for their common purpose.

This settlement firstly acknowledges the history of the Crown’s actions that have negatively impacted on Ngāti Pūkenga and gives the Crown’s apology for them. It provides cultural redress that recognises the associations Ngāti Pūkenga has with particular places and allows for iwi to work with the Crown to protect and enhance the conservation values of those sites. Four sites of importance will be transferred to Ngāti Pūkenga, and statutory acknowledgments are provided for each of those sites. The Crown is also providing payments for revitalisation of Ngāti Pūkenga culture and the revitalisation of the marae at Manaia. It also provides commercial redress, in the form of $7 million, which gives Ngāti Pūkenga the opportunity to develop their economic base, which will provide the well-being for their people and into the future. It is a start.

Today’s proceedings bring the settlement journey to a close, but now a new journey and a new challenge opens up for Ngāti Pūkenga and its leaders. Your wisdom and your actions now will determine how well this settlement increases the opportunities available to your people and provides a bright future for Ngāti Pūkenga. I wish you all the best in this endeavour.

This commercial redress cannot, and does not, fully compensate Ngāti Pūkenga for what they have lost through the Crown’s actions. No Treaty settlement can do that. Ngāti Pūkenga have displayed their generosity by accepting this settlement, which has been offered as a full and final settlement of their claims. E Te Māngai o Te Whare, e ngā iwi, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Tuatahi, ka tika, me mihi atu rā ki a Tutehounuku Korako me tana karakia hei whakawātea i te wāhanga mō ēnei kōrero i tēnei ata. Tuarua, me mihi atu rā ki Te Minita, ōna mahi hei tiaki ngā whakahaeretanga e pā ana ki ngā whakataunga kerēme. Tuatoru, ki a koutou o Ngāti Pūkenga, ka nui te mihi atu ki ngā koroheke, ngā rūruhi, koutou katoa i taemai nei i runga i te manako o ngā mātua tūpuna, kia ea koutou i roto i ēnei o ngā mahi.

[Firstly, it is apt that I acknowledge Tutehounuku Korako and his prayer to clear the part for these contributions this morning. Secondly, I must acknowledge the Minister indeed and his work in taking care of operations concerning claim settlements. Thirdly, to you collectively of Ngāti Pūkenga, there is much acknowledgment to you, elderly men and womenfolk, to you all who have arrived here upon the desires of the ancestral foremothers and fathers so that you are satisfied within these tasks.]

I reflected on the historical contribution that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations made, and it is certainly true. In all Treaty settlements the Minister has a strong grasp of the history and the encounters between the Crown and iwi Māori from 1840 to this point. It has been demonstrated time and time again in a number of Treaty settlement readings.

In so far as Tauranga Moana is concerned, I wanted to highlight a couple of things. Firstly, I want to acknowledge those negotiators who confirmed the deed of settlement—Rāhera Ōhia, Harry Haerengarangi Mikaere, Hōri Parata, Rehua Smallman, and Regina Berghan—on behalf of Ngāti Pūkenga and the trustees of Te Tāwharau o Ngāti Pūkenga Trust. I do that because the responsibility of taking some very difficult challenges of resolving historical grievances, in the hope that you can build a better future, is by no means a small feat. They did it in mind of the number of Wai claimants that would be included, and they have been listed in the legislation that we are passing today.

I make that comment because this is a difficult process, and those iwi who have gone through the process often wonder: “Is it a risk too great? Is the time now? Should we wait?”. With all those things in mind, they still continue to go forward because the aspirations of the future are too great and outweigh some of the challenges of the present. So I respect that.

I want to say that in so far as the history that the Minister outlined is concerned, whether or not Ngāti Pūkenga signed the Treaty of Waitangi, and whether or not Ngāti Pūkenga participated in the wars of Tauranga Moana, the Crown acted indiscriminately, and in the confiscation of lands in Tauranga Moana, Ngāti Pūkenga was prejudicially affected.

So the way in which Ngāti Pūkenga—and you only need look at the map of where the various interests of Ngāti Pūkenga reside in Whangarei, in Manaia, in Hauraki, and in Tauranga Moana. You get a sense that the mass dissipation of an iwi actually, as a result of confiscations, fundamentally impacted on a range of things—not just access to your whenua, where you were from originally, but your knowledge of that area and your relationship to that area. Even relocating to other areas, and the history surrounding that, provide a range of, I guess, new and contemporary tensions, albeit established back in the 1800s, and a new way of working with neighbours who have now become whanaunga.

It is no small feat to try to address the issues for Ngāti Pūkenga in a comprehensive way, with the hope that, at some part of our historical commitment to Ngāti Pūkenga, on both sides of the House, in progressing a Treaty settlement, there will be enough institutional knowledge to say that the obligation on the Crown is high, no matter what the size of the settlement is. The obligation is high because the people have been dissipated, yet they are trying to do something in unity for everybody.

That is evident to me in a number of ways. Firstly, Ngāti Pūkenga establishing their cultural connection across the areas where they currently reside is absolutely important. What overlays that, and is not necessarily evident in the legislation, is the ability of Ngāti Pūkenga to repatriate and tell their history in a way that honours the current state of where they reside, why they reside there, and what that then means for successive generations.

But here is the thing. The relationship redress contained in Ngāti Pūkenga’s deed of settlement, which is not evident in the legislation, will actually be probably the proof of the pudding about the Crown’s ongoing commitment to Ngāti Pūkenga. So if you go through the range of relationship instruments or letters of introduction and protocols that Ngāti Pūkenga have expressed, it is evident to me, at first glance, that it is about how to derive the greatest amount of value for the people—the descendants of Ngāti Pūkenga—and education is key.

Many of those letters of introduction cover a range of educational tertiary institutions that span the whole area from Whangarei right down to Raukawa, as well as Government agencies in the cultural and heritage spaces—also primary production, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. So when I make a note of the relationship redress instruments in that range of aspirations around the relationships there, it seems to me that will be the proof of the pudding about the commitment of the Crown, not only to restore its mana but to commit to a future relationship with Ngāti Pūkenga, so that they can grow their aspirations, for the benefit of their whole people—notwithstanding their dissipated location of where they actually reside now.

So that is hopeful. It can only really be achieved, again, with the leadership of the iwi and with the commitment of the Crown going forward, but it is hopeful. We should ensure that our commitment as parliamentarians—because, by and large, we have had a unanimous approach to Treaty settlements. No matter what side of the House you sit on, that is the hope that we should give voice to as we commit to these Treaty settlements.

The next thing I would say, in terms of the Ngāti Pūkenga settlement, is that some of the redress remains outstanding, in relation to the Tauranga Moana Iwi Collective. As was set out by agreement by the Māori Affairs Committee earlier this morning, the redress and remedies around Tauranga Moana have been excluded.

I did not want to, I guess, stand and not mention these things, because I saw them as important, and I wanted to give an assurance, certainly from our members who are on the select committee and from our side of the House, that the proof of the pudding for Ngāti Pūkenga will be in the future relationship with the Crown.

It is so important that people hear the story of Ngāti Pūkenga as you work through how this Treaty settlement is going to leverage and give greater opportunity to the next generation. One small comparator: it is a little bit like in our own rohe within Tainui waka, Ngāti Apakura—indiscriminately affected as a result of raupatu, widely dispersed from Taupō, all throughout Maniapoto and Waikato, and if there were true gypsies of the Waikato confiscations, it was Apakura. So there is a huge obligation within iwi but also on the Crown to try to make sure that we do much more in this regard to support the aspirations, because the actions of the Crown were indiscriminate. No matter where Ngāti Pūkenga stood at a certain point of time, the actions of the Crown were indiscriminate.

We often recognise that the Crown acknowledgments and the apologies of Treaty settlements for the iwi are the most important thing because it holds the Crown to account. I am not going to, in this instance, read it out—time does not afford it of me—but I do want to signal, while there is a Minister in the House, that the inclusion of local content into the education curriculum, certainly in so far as young people learning their own history within their own rohe, can often be derived from the history in the deed of settlement that has been set out, the apology, and the Crown acknowledgments. We should continue to foster our education system towards repatriating local history into our schools so that all our kids know what happened, but, more importantly, what iwi did to try to move the next generation into a better space.

Nō reira, he iti nāku, nāku te raurau mō tēnei kete kōrero hei āwhina i tēnei tūāhuatanga. Ngāti Pūkenga, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Therefore, a small contribution from me; this receptacle is mine for this contribution basket to help this situation. Acknowledgments, congratulations, and well done to you, Ngāti Pūkenga, and to us all.]

E rau rangatira mā, e ngā iwi, kia ora mai tātou. It is a pleasure to speak to this bill in its third reading, a Treaty settlement bill that has all the features of a well-formed settlement bill: firstly, the apologies and acknowledgment; secondly, cultural redress; and, thirdly, commercial redress. There are also significant other components in the deed of settlement that are not in the bill because they do not require legislative authorisation. This includes cultural redress: a $500,000 cultural revitalisation project and a $180,000 marae revitalisation project component. Also, commercial redress not in this bill includes a quantum of $7 million in interest in commercial redress of properties.

These are some of the structural elements to the settlement, but I want to briefly talk to the wider picture in a non-fiscal manner. I started off by saying that it is a pleasure to rise and speak to this bill—a generic pleasantry, maybe, to start a contribution, but today it really is a pleasure, a rare and very timely pleasure with 3 more sitting days before the House rises. To elaborate, I am the elected MP for Whangarei, and it has been a sadness to me, and I know to others, that in this parliamentary term no Treaty settlement has settled in the boundaries of my electorate.

My electorate is also encompassed by the Te Tai Tokerau Māori seat held by my colleague Kelvin Davis, but Kelvin has had the pleasure of many Treaty settlements across Tai Tokerau, so his cup is not empty. In contrast, with 3 sitting days to go, my cupboard was looking very bare. The electoral cycle was going to come to an end, and Treaty settlements in Whangarei would be unrequited and unfulfilled for another time—but Ngāti Pūkenga have saved the day. At the completion of this third reading, Ngāti Pūkenga will settle, and the electorate of Whangarei will have its first Treaty settlement.

When I raised this with the wise heads of the Northland Regional Council a few weeks ago, they asked “But how can that be, when Ngāti Pūkenga are a more southern presence around Tauranga, Maketū, and Manaia in the Coromandel?”. Well, as a colleague alluded to in a previous reading, Ngāti Pūkenga have a historical presence in my electorate, about 7 km out of Whangarei, through Onerahi and along Whangarei Heads Road is that beautiful place colloquially known as Tamaterau, which is also known as Pakikaikutu.

The historical oral and website account describes a division of Ngāti Pūkenga, led by venerated chief Moeroa, on a mission to buy firearms and munitions from the European and American traders in and around Russell. On their journey they passed the entrance to Whangarei Harbour, and one of the warriors expressed a desire to visit his sister, Te Rore, and so was let off and the flotilla continued on. Reaching a small river, the young warrior stooped to partake of the crystal clear waters and soothe his parched throat when an assailant ambushed him and killed him.

Back in the Bay of Islands, word reached Moeroa and his army that their comrade had met a terrible fate. Now well armed and primed for battle, the canoe sailed forth from the Bay of Islands to Whangarei. Te Tirarau and the other chiefs of Whangarei also heard the news of this treacherous act and that Ngāti Pūkenga were on the war path and none of them were safe. As it was one of their own who was the perpetrator, they considered what the best course of action might be. Some advocated war preparations while others advocated caution, as Ngāti Pūkenga’s reputation as a warrior race preceded them. In fact, these people had been called on previously by Whangarei iwi Te Parawhau to assist them in their battles, in which they were victorious. They were not to be trifled with.

Te Tirarau and other chiefs decided that because the reason for Pūkenga’s advance was in fact just, they must respond as rangatira, and so they decided they would meet the war party at Pārua Bay en masse. Making quick time, the majority of Whangarei chiefs made their way to await Ngāti Pūkenga. The two iwi met on the shores of Pārua Bay and prepared to engage in a war. Local chief Te Tirarau spoke of the killing as a treacherous deed that must be paid for, and suggested that for the killing of their kinsman the local tribes would gift Ngāti Pūkenga the place where the man was felled. More than that, the area would be larger so that they could remain on the land to become tangata whenua along with the other tribes of Whangarei. Moeroa contemplated this offer and finally said that he would accept the whenua as compensation, that this action would wipe the slate clean, and from that time on Ngāti Pūkenga would be equal in mana with the other tribes. Moeroa and his people settled the land known as Pakikaikutu. Moeroa died in his 90s and is buried at Pakikaikutu-Tamaterau.

Ngāti Wai are my iwi, in the large natural grouping of this area, and speaking with them, they are very pleased for Ngāti Pūkenga to be settling today. Settlement discussions went well, and resolutions around boundaries out to the tidal margin and out to the heads also went well, not only with Ngāti Wai but also with Te Waiariki, and so today Ngāti Wai and other local iwi join with you in celebration.

In conclusion, I join with you in celebration, a celebration that is, of course, much wider than my small area of electoral representation. This is a celebration of acknowledgment of the past and hope for the future for the people of Ngāti Pūkenga, and history will record you as the first settling iwi of Whangarei. For that, I both congratulate you and thank you. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora mai tātou katoa.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare Nui, tēnā koutou e te whānau whānui o Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Tāwera, and Ngāti Hā, nau mai, haere mai, piki mai ki Te Whare Pāremata.

[Greetings to you collectively, the Big House, and to you, the extended family of Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Tāwera, and Ngāti Hā, welcome, come hither, and climb aboard Parliament House.]

I would like to start by acknowledging the negotiators and the team with Āreta Gray and others. I would like to also acknowledge your loss of your great man Awanui Black. I would like to acknowledge the connection that I feel very deeply to Manaia and to the Mikaere whānau and Harry Mikaere’s work on this. I have not mentioned all the people, I do not know all the people; I am very privileged to speak, though, about any of you.

This is my last Treaty speech in the House before I return to Hauraki. I have been extremely privileged to speak on Treaty bills as a Pākehā in this Whare and extremely privileged that the last one should be for these people who have a connection to where I live, in their rohe—part of their rohe. They have many, many places to stand. I just want to acknowledge those places to stand, as we have heard previously: Tauranga, Maketū, Whangarei—as my colleague has just described—and Manaia in Hauraki. I thank the people for travelling all that way. It is a long journey, a very long journey. Not everybody gets to jump on a plane all the time like politicians. Some people have to drive those roads, and we welcome you to this Whare.

I am very pleased we have got here in time, before the House rises. I know that Ngāti Pūkenga were very keen to get this done before the end of this term of Parliament, and with all the complexities around some of this, it has been a long struggle, so congratulations—you got here; get it done. I know there are other issues to be settled around the moana, but at least this iwi can move forward and say they have reached this point, so all honour to you.

I do want to briefly look back at the history, and there is too much to talk about, so I will just acknowledge some small examples of what has happened to these people. We say things very glibly in this House; it rolls off the tongue that after the Land Wars, these people who were not participating in the raruraru were given £350 by the Crown for 50,000 acres—50,000 acres. It is hard to even hold in the mind’s eye the scope of all that whenua and what goes with it: all the life, the births, the deaths, the kai-gathering, the tradition, the culture, the economic base of those 50,000 acres and £350.

Some things never change. However, it was not just what happened in the 1800s that we need to stand up and talk about; it is also what happened through the Māori Land Court. You could say the Māori Land Court was an instrument of worse oppression than the gun, because you can see the war coming, but when the war is through the court, it is a special form of torture. The way that the Māori Land Court treated Ngāti Pūkenga in terms of forcing the individualisation of land blocks—not only Ngāti Pūkenga, many, many, many iwi experienced this, but Ngāti Pūkenga experienced a full attack via these provisions.

That is how a culture is destroyed as its collective being, to individualise land blocks. The main commitment that colonisation took was to individualise, to divide, and to rule. In the 1970s this was still going on. I know it was, because I moved to Hauraki in the 1970s, and Auntie Betty Williams—whaea; kuia now—told me about what happened to her mother’s land block in the 1970s, and why she fought that in the 1970s when the small blocks were once again under attack by the Māori Land Court. The whānau blocks of land, and more land, were alienated.

I just want to stand for a moment to acknowledge kuia Betty Williams, who came to my valedictory on Tuesday but could not stay. She is from Manaia—she is Ngāti Pūkenga. When it comes to the redress that is in this bill, people like her stood up and fought for their whenua, and they fought for the Manaia Harbour, and they fought for the rivers and the rohe. Multinationals wanted to take the land and explore that harbour, the beautiful Manaia Harbour, for mining, and kuia like Auntie Betty and her whānau stood up. So we should never forget that this is not just about ancient history. We need to teach our people that this is about the 20th century’s continual use of the tools of oppression against these people—not just in Manaia but right through the rohe of Ngāti Pūkenga. So, just acknowledging that kuia who taught me that if you want to stand in her rohe, you stand for Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

It is good to see in the redress that places like the Manaia Harbour and the Manaia River are actually part of that, and the beautiful marae that has been part of the restoration of resources for Manaia. I am sorry that I am talking about just this part of the rohe; I know there is a lot more, but it is good to see and I know that they are leading now in education. Their kura kaupapa is renowned throughout the rohe. So it is to their credit that all of these things are happening.

I want to talk generally now back to the settlement, and back to an issue that I mentioned in the second reading because it was brought to us by Ngāti Pūkenga around issues of right of first refusal. I just want to say thank you. You, Ngāti Pūkenga, have inspired us, te Rōpū Kākāriki, to talk about the need for a review of the Treaty settlement process, because there are anomalous things that happen, that are not talked about, but you, yourselves, brought this to us. So thank you for bringing that right of first refusal: the fact that it says in all the settlements that it can also be offered to a charitable trust. This, to me, is like saying: “We’ve stolen your car, and we’re offering you back a hubcap, but if one of the thieves’ families wants to have the hubcap first, you can have second dibs on that hubcap, and it’s a little bit bent, but he aha!”.

So I think that Ngāti Pūkenga must be given credit for raising this issue and saying that just because it is in every settlement, does not mean that it is right. That is why we stand for—we do not believe in full and final settlement, in the Greens. We believe that Te Tiriti commits us, particularly article 2, to an ongoing relationship of negotiation based on respecting the rangatiratanga of the tangata whenua. And Ngāti Pūkenga, you, sorry, they—you are not meant to say “you” in the House because otherwise it means the Speaker and he gets cross with me—have laid down the wero to this Parliament about rights of first refusal. I want to acknowledge too that the Ministers are always open to debate on these issues and I really appreciate that. I really do appreciate that.

So thank you Ngāti Pūkenga. Thank you for reminding us that—$5 million is not a hell of a lot of money, but you are going to make the best of it, and you are going to hold us to account, and the apology is important. There is a lot to apologise for—getting back to the hubcap—but, actually, one of the most important things in this very positive settlement is the focus on education and cultural heritage. I wish that we all would dedicate our lives, not just tangata whenua, to educating everybody in Aotearoa about the true nature of the basis of this country and what has happened, and how it has happened; who stole what hubcap from whom, and how we are all part of the healing.

I want to thank Ngāti Pūkenga, in all of their sites where they stand so powerfully, for bringing up the issues, for standing for their own people, and, in standing for their own, for actually challenging us to educate our own. Te Rōpū Kākāriki is committed that there should be this education, there should be this respect, and there should be this review of Treaty processes. Always honouring, not settling, is the kaupapa. Kia ora tātou. Ngā mihi nui ki ta Ngāti Pūkenga. Kia ora.

I just want to thank Catherine Delahunty, my ex-classmate, for her final contribution in the House. There have been a few Onslow College people come and go from the House, and there is no doubt that Catherine has continued the passionate style to which we have been accustomed. Thank you, Catherine.

Te mea tuatahi e tika ana kia mihi kau ana ki tō tātau hoa a Tutehounuku, nāna i whakarite tō tātou nohoanga mō te rā nei, nā reira, e kara, tēnā koe. Koutou nō Ngāti Pūkenga, koutou i tau mai nei i runga i te karanga o Te Whare nei kia whakamana tā koutou kerēme ki te taraipiunara, nā reira, nau mai, haere mai! Haere mai, pīkautia mai ngā tini aituā kei waenganui i a koutou ki te tūhonono ki tēnei o ngā mate kei waenganui i a mātau. Nā reira, e tika ana kia whakahuangia e tōku tuakana a Kelvin, a Wīremu rāua ko Te Awanuiārangi nā te mea, i te wā e ora ana, nā rāua i tū kaha ana ki te kawe atu i tēnei kaupapa, engari, i muri mai i tō rāua hingatanga, nā, ka taka mai wēnā kaupapa ki runga i a koutou, nā reira, e kore e mimiti te puna kōrero mō rātou engari, e kī nei te kōrero haere, haere hoki atu! Nā, ka hoki mai ki a tātou te hunga ora, nā reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou.

[The first thing is it is apt that a compliment be accorded to our colleague Tutehounuku. He considered a prayer for our sitting on this day, therefore well done. To you collectively of Ngāti Pūkenga, who alighted here upon the call of this House to enact your claim to the tribunal, welcome, come hither! Come forth with the myriad of deaths that are amongst you to link to this one of the deaths within us. Therefore it is apt for my elder sibling, Kelvin, to mention Wīremu and Te Awanuiārangi, because when they were alive, they were resolute in bringing this proposal forth, but when they passed away then these matters dropped upon you. And so the pool of talk about them will never run dry, but the aphorism says this: depart, go forth, farewell! I come back now to us the living, and so acknowledgments, accolades, and salutations to you collectively.]

Like for all third readings of Treaty claims, being from the North I stand and unashamedly say that I am jealous. I belong to, allegedly, the biggest tribe in New Zealand and yet we cannot get to this stage—in fact, we cannot even get to the negotiating table. This is the second settlement bill that we have heard today and I must congratulate those who have been responsible for bringing this bill to this stage. I just wonder whether or not it is a message to Ngāpuhi that perhaps we should put a woman in charge of the negotiations. But then that should not be a surprise coming from someone who is descended from, and whose tribe is named after, a woman—Hineamaru.

Nā reira, e tika ana kia mihi kau ana ki a koutou e Ngāti Pūkenga engari, i roto i te pire nei, e tika ana kia whakahuangia ēnei o ngā hapū ō koutou, ko Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Tāwera me Ngāti Hā, me Ngāti Kiorekino, Ngāti Hinemotu, Ngāti Rākau, Ngāti Te Mātau, Ngāi Tōwhare, and Ngāti Whākina. Nā reira, e rapa ana i ngā ingoa o aua hapū i roto i ngā ripoata o Te Whare nei.

[Therefore it is apt that I should indeed acknowledge you collectively, Ngāti Pūkenga, but in this bill it is appropriate for these hapū of yours to be mentioned: Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Tāwera, Ngāti Hā, Ngāti Kiorekino, Ngāti Hinemotu, Ngāti Rākau, Ngāti Te Mātau, Ngāi Tōwhare, and Ngāti Whākina. So I am looking for the names of those hapū in the reports of this House.]

I do not want to reiterate the history that has culminated in this bill coming before the House today. I think we are all quite clear on why this bill has come here and why this settlement is taking place. I think one of the good things that will come out of it is that discussions are already being had about having this history included in our curriculum. I have no doubts that the history of Ngāti Pūkenga will be one of those that will be recited throughout the country, because of the historical nature of a peaceful iwi—well, they certainly were regarded as peaceful at that time—but having paid the price, the ultimate price of that stance that they took of not participating in that battle. It does contribute to the dark side of our history. I say “our history” because, whether we like it or not, the Crown’s activity is part of our history. To me, to see the apology that has been given by the Crown, while it is given with such sincerity it will never, ever replace the damage that it has done to Ngāti Pūkenga.

So I just want to reiterate my congratulations to those people who have been responsible for carrying this kaupapa on behalf of their people. I also want to say that in the previous bill that came before the House this morning my tuakana Peeni referred to the Scriptures—that there is a time for love and there is a time for hate, talking of the different seasons. Today is part of that process that Ngāti Pūkenga have taken—ngā piki, ngā heke.

Can I say—and I want to take the liberty of saying this—that this is only a start of a new journey that they are going to take, and there will be ups and downs, but it will be incumbent on those whom the iwi put their faith in to determine how that journey takes place going into the future. I say this because I can recall my father giving me this word of advice after, in my own hapū—or we call it an iwi; we are probably the only ones who refer to Ngāti Hine as an iwi—I was given the responsibility of chairing our rūnanga. He said: “Boy, if you think you’re a leader of your people, never forget to look behind you, because if there’s no one there then ask the question ‘Who are you leading?’ ”. That will be the challenge for those people who will be charged with carrying the future of Ngāti Pūkenga and its fortunes. No doubt, the very people whom you serve will be the very ones who will give you the roughest time. I kī mai wētahi, wēnā te āhuatanga o Te Māori, wēnā te āhuatanga o wā rātou aroha ki a tātou.

[Some have said that that is a Māori trait, that is the feature of their empathy towards us.]

We heard, earlier on, the connection to the North, particularly of Pakikaikutu. As my tuakana also said in an earlier debate, when people succeed then we are related to them, but if they do not, “Oh, don’t know that fulla.” Well, I want to just say that that connection between Ngāti Hine and Ngāti Pūkenga is already there. You just ask Bentham—Bentham knows. In terms of that relationship, I hope that from time to time this mere mortal from Ngāti Hine might avail myself of your generosity.

Kia ahatia! Engari e tika ana kia mihi tonu ki a koutou, tōku whakaaro, tōku mihi ki a koutou korekau e pau te kaha. Engari ngā kōrero whakamutunga, ngā manaakitanga o Te Runga Rawa kei runga i a koutou, ki ngā whānau, me ērā atu o ngā tupuranga kei te heke mai, nā reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora mai anō tātou.

[So what! But it is still fitting for you collectively to be acknowledged, that is my view; my tribute to you will never lose its intensity. On the other hand, the closing remarks: may the kindness of the Almighty Above be upon you collectively, the families and those other generations to come, therefore greetings and acknowledgments to you collectively, and my appreciation once again to us.]

Ā, tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, otirā, ki a koutou kua hui nei i tēnei wā, kua haere ā-kanohi mai, kua rāngona ā-taringa, kua kite ā-karu, kia rongo ā-wairua hoki ki te kupu e whārikihia nei e ēnei o ngā hoa mahi, rangatira hoki o Te Whare Mīere.

[So thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but at the same time to you collectively who have gathered here face to face at this point in time to listen, to see visibly, and to hear spiritually, as well, the message being set down here by this one of these work colleagues and esteemed ones of the Beehive too.]

Well, sometimes I wish I could just pass my speaking spot to someone else—any of you in the gallery—who knows this better than me, who knows your history better than I do, who could stand here and tell of the battles both historic and today’s. We hear you. Someone who could come down here—and, Mr Assistant Speaker, if that was something we could do I would gladly give up my place for any one of these rangatira to come down here and tell us from their lips the stories of their people. But I will make some sort of attempt today to get on to the record of this House the parts of your history that have inspired me. It is a historic day for you, and it is a historic day for Māori.

As you look around here and see that our seats are just about empty as the business of the House continues in other rooms around the place—you know, sometimes I mourn at that. I think there can be nothing more important than being here for this. There can be nothing more important than rectifying the grievances of the past—and is it a rectification, I am not sure? That is a flash word. Is it one? Does this make it right? Obviously, it never does. It is an opportunity to take stock and then look forward. All right, we know what has happened but it is time to look forward, and your people have been doing that for a long time.

I remember at Awanuiārangi’s tangi talking about building up the puna, so that when one dies it does not matter, because there are many to take their place. So that is what has happened. You are all here ready to take up your place. But as I looked over the history and I looked at the Battle of Gate Pā, I found this account and I thought you might be interested. Some of you may have read it; some maybe not. This comes from “Captain Mair’s Graphic Account of the Memorable Battle”. It says: “No satisfactory explanation has yet been given, how it happened that nearly two thousand men of Her Majesty’s forces, the finest troops known, amply provided with the best artillery and arms of precision in the world, were singly defeated by less than two hundred and fifty … warriors, whose only weapons consisted of old flint tower muskets,”—and I do not even know what this word is—“Brummagem double and single barrelled shot guns and long-handled tomahawks.”—but they were.

Then I had a look down at how the people did this, and I found this little paragraph, which I think you might love: “During the interval from their first occupation of the Gate Pa, the rebels, energetically assisted by their women folk”—just saying—“in the heaviest work,”—because women do the heaviest work; just saying again—“and being entirely unmolested, had converted a harmless looking grassy knoll into a work that was to test the calibre of British troops to the utmost. Probably there never was an instance in modern warfare where more deliberate and carefully conceived plans had been devised for securing a crushing defeat of the enemy.”

Then what did they do? They saw that, and then they rolled in with cannon fire, day after day after day. When they finally entered into the pā, having destroyed all of the palisades that had been erected, what did they find? It was empty, apart from the few fallen warriors who were there. But the people, through their trenches and through their tunnels in the middle of the night, through the gaps in the army’s regiments, had snuck off to fight another day. And yet we do not even know about this. We do not remember.

This country does not acknowledge our Land Wars. We have a date now. We have a date now to do that, and that is because of your whānau, who came to the steps of this place, and others from across the country, including the girls from Ōtorohanga, who came and demanded that we recognise the Land Wars in this country, where more Kiwis, both Māori and non-Māori, were killed than in both World Wars.

You know, you go to Gallipoli, and it is this sacred spot where those wars were raged. You go to places around the world, and they are sacred spots—you know, tapu—and then you come to the places of war in Aotearoa, and there is a road going straight through it and cows grazing on top of it.

One of the old people said to me: “Marama, you know when it’s Māori land. The roads are straight. You know if it’s Māori land. The roads are straight because they drove them straight through. And you know when it’s not Māori land, where people had already occupied it, because it goes around the farms.” Here, in the most sacred places, which should be remembered and hallowed and respected and put aside for all of Aotearoa to remember, the road goes straight through. So I thought that was quite a lot of fun, reading that account from the eyes of the British, who were despairing and saying: “How could we have lost? How could we have been defeated—the finest infantry that we had?”.

You know, your tupuna—and I had better get this right—Te Kou o Rehua signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi at Maungatapu in April of 1840, and when he did that, he anticipated that the Crown would protect his people’s rights and privileges, which had been repeatedly spoken of and written in the words. We all know that by the mid-1850s Ngāti Pūkenga started to go “Hold on. What’s going here? We thought we were in this together.”, nevertheless, Ngāti Pūkenga never gave up. They always stood up and always battled against the injustices that were being meted out time after time after time.

We know that because you are still here, and you still battle and, despite the pittance that is delivered by the Crown, which is supposed to make up for the injustices of the past, you still accept it and move on. But we never forget, and you do that in the example of our ancestors, who always did it. From the 1880s Ngāti Pūkenga can be seen in the records of this nation protesting about the injustices that had been meted out time and time again.

We come to this point when, finally, we can accept that we, inevitably, need to move on. As you have heard from others, they are very envious. Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa is yet to come to this House to hear their first reading, and you have come to your third. Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi have yet to get it together—

💬 Peeni Henare: No, just Ngāpuhi.

Oh, right—sorry. There is only one side that needs to get it together, apparently, and the other side is all good. I am not sure which side he is talking about. But, you know, we sit and we have turned on each other to get to this point, when we should have been focusing our attention on our common enemy, and that is not each other.

We stand in kotahitanga, and sometimes elections are like that. They pit us against each other, even though we here are all Māori in this House. We need to come together if we are going to ever realise tino rangatiratanga on our land. Your people fought for kotahitanga. Your people stood united. Your people have continued to stand and thrive, and looking forward, despite what happens in a couple of months, or a month—40-something days—we will continue to stand and we will continue to thrive. And it does not matter who is sitting in these seats down here; it matters who is sitting in those seats up there. And here is the next generation, ready to take up the mantle of the example that you leave for them.

So I am proud to stand here and support the third reading of your bill in your time for your history and for your future. Tēnā tātou katoa.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te W’are, otirā, e tika ana kia tuku mihi atu ki a koutou ngā whānau me ngā hapū o Ngāti Pūkenga, nō reira, e whakapiri ana taku mi’i ki ngā mi’i katoa kei roto i Te W’are nei ki a koutou katoa; nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou. Hoi anō ki a tātau o Te W’are nei, tēnā tātau.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but at the same time it is apt that I offer a tribute of acknowledgment to you collectively, the families and subtribes of Ngāti Pūkenga, and so I add my accolades to all those accorded to you all from within this House; therefore, salutations and well done to you collectively. And, as a result, my appreciation to all of us of this House, congratulations.]

It is a pleasure to take a call on the third reading of this Ngāti Pūkenga Claims Settlement Bill. I want to acknowledge all of the members of Ngāti Pūkenga who have arrived here at this Whare today to hear the third reading of this bill.

I want to first of all speak about the first part of the bill, which comprises the historical account, acknowledgment, and apology. Every time I speak to a settlement bill, I try to go back to the deed of settlement and read the historical account, and just when I think I have read the saddest historical account, along comes another one. I want to acknowledge everything that is in the historical account. These historical accounts are written in quite a clinical way, I think. You do not always get the full emotion of what has happened to the iwi. So if I was to characterise what I have read, I read about conflict, about war, about raupatu, about deceit, and about dishonesty, and I wanted to recognise the full extent of the history that Ngāti Pūkenga carry today.

From that historical account, we have the acknowledgment, which acknowledges the breaches of the Treaty, and I wanted to read out one in particular. It says: “The Crown acknowledges that its confiscation/raupatu at Tauranga Moana left Ngāti Pūkenga increasingly dependent on tuku whenua lands (lands received through customary transfer) outside of Tauranga for their support, and that the wish of Te Kou o Rehua expressed in his ōhākī for all Ngāti Pūkenga at Manaia to return to Tauranga Moana has not been realised.” That is an acknowledgment from the Crown in recognition of what is in the historical account. My colleague Peeni Henare pointed out to me about some land at Akerama that was gifted to Patarau—that is near Ruapekapeka—as one example of that tuku whenua.

I think it is important that this House recognises the full extent of what has happened to Ngāti Pūkenga. I will not go through all of the acknowledgments, but I also want to refer to the apology. There is a very clear structure to these settlements in this legislation: historical account, acknowledgment, and then, of course, the apology. The last clause of the apology reads: “The Crown acknowledges the suffering it caused Ngāti Pūkenga through its breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi. This settlement will, the Crown sincerely hopes, mark the beginning of a new relationship between the Crown and Ngāti Pūkenga that is founded on respect for Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles.”

I think that, to me, recognising that first part of the bill is the most important part of this process. It is part of the start, hopefully, of the process of reconciliation over what has happened, the pathway forward, and the means by which that can happen. The means by which that can happen is, of course, through the cultural redress and the commercial redress.

First of all, I want to congratulate the negotiators on negotiating a comprehensive package of redress mechanisms, which includes cultural revitalisation, cultural reconnection, and relationship protocols. The cultural revitalisation mechanism that is in the bill is really important. I cannot imagine the impact on the Ngāti Pūkenga traditions and Ngāti Pūkenga Reo by the iwi being distributed from Tauranga Moana all the way up to Tai Tokerau. That must surely have had a huge impact on the traditions, culture, and language of Ngāti Pūkenga. Through that cultural revitalisation it is my sincere hope that Ngāti Pūkenga will be able to move forward positively and reconcile all of those disparities that it has to face for the future. Like previous settlements, it is an act of generosity of Ngāti Pūkenga in accepting this Treaty settlement.

To finish on a positive note moving forward, I wish Ngāti Pūkenga all the best for the future; that this settlement and the totality of this package moves Ngāti Pūkenga forward; and that, indeed, as it states in the apology, there is a new relationship between the Crown and Ngāti Pūkenga. I also hope that the relationships with all our whakapapa and whanaungatanga between all iwi in the areas that Ngāti Pūkenga reside can also move forward as well. I think that the legacy that will be handed to the next generation is a good one, and one that is full of hope and opportunity for the future.

If I can also acknowledge other speakers on this bill today: in particular, I do want to acknowledge Catherine Delahunty for her contributions to all settlement bills, including the first reading of the Ngāti Apa settlement, which I was a negotiator for. I remember very clearly the contribution that she made. I think she used the hubcap analogy in that one as well—it was so true.

I also want to acknowledge Mr Pita Paraone for his contributions, which are always consistent and always, I think, if anything, encouraging, because I have whakapapa to Tai Tokerau as well. I acknowledge his persistence in wanting to see a conclusion to the Ngāpuhi settlements as well.

Nō reira, kāore e roa taku kōrero i tēnei wā, oti noa, e tika ana kia tuku mi’i atu anō ki ngā uri o Tāwera, o Ngāti Haonga, o Ngāti Pūkenga, nō reira, koutou mā, kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawa nui i roto i tēnei ā’uatanga, nō reira, tēnā tātau katoa.

[My contribution as a consequence is not a long one at this moment, but it is appropriate once again for me to accord a tribute to the descendants of Tāwera, Ngāti Haonga, and Ngāti Pūkenga, so, to you and the others, be strong, bold, and really stout of heart in this one of the circumstances, and, accordingly, my appreciation to us all.]

Bill read a third time.

Waiata

Haka

Thank you. I get a sense of how my ancestors felt. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

The House adjourned at 12.11 p.m. (Thursday)