There was a time not too long ago when when any outburst from the public galleries which sit above, and around Parliament's debating chamber would have been greeted with an order from the Speaker to have the offenders thrown out and served with trespass notices.

All that changed with the appointment of the first Maori Speaker Peter Tapsell who was also the first Speaker to serve across party lines since World War II when the Tories, desperate with a one seat majority in 1993, asked him to stay on, essentially to save their butts. There were egocentric howls of derision from Luigi Peters who, if Tapsell didn't accept the job, would have held the balance of power.

Peters may have been silenced but Parliament's bear pit wasn't. Tapsell allowed Maori to perform the waiata from the public galleries on special occasions.

Those special occasions have extended to virtually anything that Maori see as significant to them, like the swearing in of Maori MPs and the whanau decide to give a rousing reception, complete with guitars, from the galleries. It'd be interesting to see if on the swearing in of someone from the deep south they broke into Ten Guitars whether they'd get away with it. Not on your nelly.

But yesterday was a special occasion when busloads from four iwi from the North descended en masse, took over the galleries and at the end of a bill bringing them a hundred million dollar settlement they burst into song, well who wouldn't?. The official lunch break was growing shorter as they embarked on several haka, even though they were given permission for only one.

After quarter of an hour they spilled into Parliament's Grand Hall, tables groaning with food, to celebrate.

To those of us who've been around a while, it was worth reflecting on how different Parliament is compared to what it used to be. And how it's uniquely Kiwi that we can celebrate Maori grievances that have dragged on for decades as this one had.

And how poignant it is considering it's 40 years ago next week that the Maori Grande Dame Whina Cooper lead thousands on a march from the Far North to protest the alienation of Maori land.

And how some remembered it was also 40 years since Labour's Matt Rata set up the Waitangi Tribunal to give voice to their grievances.

And to think that Rob Muldoon once proclaimed Maori settlements were fine by him, providing they were dated from the establishment of that tribunal!