Ngāti Maru uri (descendants) at Parliament for the settlement bill's first reading. Photo/ Supplied
Ngāti Maru uri (descendants) at Parliament for the settlement bill's first reading. Photo/ Supplied
The Government has promised to return to Ngāti Maru to apologise for the "destructive and demoralising effects" of Treaty breaches on the inland Taranaki iwi.
The Ngāti Maru (Taranaki) Claims Settlement Bill was voted for by all parties in Parliament on Tuesday.
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little toldthe House Covid-19 restrictions had prevented an apology from being given to the iwi before the law went through Parliament.
"I look forward to meeting Ngāti Maru in their rohe some time in the near future ... and I would be honoured on behalf of the Crown to deliver the much-deserved apology."
The Ngāti Maru rohe (area) is centred on the inland Waitara River Valley, and extends from Taranaki Mounga in the west to the upper Whanganui River in the east.
The settlement is the last of the historic claims by the region's eight iwi.
The bill describes how half of Ngāti Maru's land was confiscated as punishment, despite the iwi not being involved in the Taranaki wars.
The rest of its land was taken via the Native Land Court and leases under the Public Trustee, and this loss "eroded tribal structures, created severe poverty, and damaged the physical, cultural, and spiritual health of generations of Ngāti Maru people".
Ngāti Maru negotiators in front of the wharenui Ngarongo – Nathan Peri (left), Holden Hohaia, Emma Gardiner and Anaru Marshall. Photo / Supplied
The bill includes apologies for the "destructive and demoralising" war and "indiscriminate and unwarranted" confiscation, as well as for "unjust treatment and exile" meted out for peaceful resistance and for "unconscionable actions at Parihaka and the ensuing hardship and heartache Ngāti Maru peoples suffered".
Little admitted the settlement didn't fully compensate for Ngāti Maru's losses and thanked the iwi for its generosity of spirit.
He said it was a day "for acknowledging our troubled past and for recognising that the burden of history is one that Ngāti Maru will continue to bear".
Te Tai Hauāuru MP Adrian Rurawhe highlighted the chance for cultural revitalisation, including history beyond the account agreed with the Crown in the settlement.
"I look forward to reading your own stories, which you write yourself, which are not negotiated with the Crown, and I'm sure they will bring to light a number of aspects of your own experience."
Taranaki-King Country National MP Barbara Kuriger was at Te Upoko o te Whenua marae at Tarata when the Deed of Settlement was signed in February last year.
She also looked forward to returning for the formal apology.
"It is never in my view a complete settlement, it is in my view an agreement between two parties to in some part make up for the things that happened.
Raymond Tuuta (left, trustee), Nathan Peri (negotiator), Anaru Marshall (lead negotiator), Sam Tamarapa (trustee), Rowena Henry (advisory trustee), Eileen Hall (trustee) with mokopuna Sade, and Tamzyn-Rose Pue (Te Tumu Ahurea). Photo / Supplied
"I only hope in coming to this place to reach a settlement that you have the opportunity to rebuild as much of your structure, your culture and the spiritual health of the generations."
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer acknowledged the sacrifices needed to reach a settlement through an unfair process.
"Nowhere else in the legal system is the perpetrator allowed to determine the process.
"Justice is not served by this House today. It is the pure love for our nation that sees Ngāti Maru accepting the settlement.
"As long as our mokopuna thrive, this will never be full and final, just as relativity will never be off the table."
The Greens' Te Tiriti o Waitangi spokeswoman, Jan Logie, said Ngāti Maru had spoken of conflict with related iwi arising as part of an antagonistic Treaty process.
"The Green Party still holds to the possibility of a settlement process that is tikanga based, that is not full and final, does not force people into large unnatural groupings, and is led from the ground, not Crown's self-interest."
Ngāti Maru heartland - Te Upoko o te Whenua marae nestled alongside the upper Waitara River at Tarata. Photo/ Supplied
Although Act voted for the bill, MP Simon Court raised his party's campaign against co-governance, challenging the joint management agreement to be set up between Ngāti Maru and Taranaki Regional Council.
"Would it be more effective, rather than giving joint management, to say well actually there are some property rights ... and that potentially in the future, giving property rights in water would be more effective than management and decision-making power over how other people use that water."
Labour's MP for New Plymouth, Glen Bennett, spoke next and responded to Court.
"I feel the need to apologise ... that even though we're here in the third reading, even though we've come to this place of settlement with you, we still get our language wrong.
"In many times and many places, many of us have our thinking wrong.
"I commit myself to ... partnership, [a term] which gets thrown around, but that partnership is actually friendship, is actually walking together in friendship which is equal."
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
