At Old Government House in Auckland on the 12th February 2010 Emily Karaka was the first iwi representative invited to sign the Manawhenua O Tamaki Makaurau and Crown Framework Agreement under which hapu and iwi would negotiate settlements of their historic treaty grievances against the Crown.
 
Two years later at the Auckland War Memorial Museum the Manawhenua O Tamaki Makaurau Collective Deed of Settlement and Post Settlement Governance Proposal was signed by Emily Karaka and representatives of ten hapu and iwi and the Minister of Treaty Negotiations, on behalf of the Crown. The Tamaki Collective Deed, which sits alongside hapu and iwi specific settlements, includes the transfer of ownership of 14 maunga (mountains), 3 permanent motu (island areas including the tihi - summit of Rangitoto), ownership of specific motu and Right of First Refusal over all surplus Crown owned land and certain Crown Entity owned land within Tamaki Makaurau for 172 years.
 
On the eve of Ngai Tai ki Tamaki’s settlement, Emily Karaka’s exhibition “Settlement” explores the Crown’s settlement process, old land claims and Turton Deeds transactions which alienated lands and islands from the Tribes of Tamaki. As a descendant of Kiwi Tamaki (who resided on many of the volcanic cones in Tamaki) and a descendant of the Ngai Tai Rangatira Nuku (who participated in land sales deeds and signed Te Tiriti O Waitangi at Karaka Bay in Auckland in 1840), the artist confirms: Ka Mau Mahara – we will remember.
 
- Pai Maarie.
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