Prime Willow-JeanWILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): E te Māngai o te Whare. Otirā tēnā koe Joseph. Congratulations on getting your bill drawn from the members' ballot. Like Tāmati Coffey who just spoke prior I will not be able to support this bill or commend it to the House. I'll just outline my reasons for that.So my involvement with whenua Māori goes back at least a decade first in the Waitangi Tribunal where our hapū claims were taken to the Waitangi Tribunal. One of the first claims that was filed were our issues with the Native Land Court and now the Māori Land Court. So I am acutely aware of the types of issues and challenges that whānau have with Māori land.But also more recently when I was a councillor on the Far North District Council and we were dealing with the issue of rates on whenua Māori. The challenges that the legislation presented in terms of the rates arrears on whenua Māori and how that inhibited many whānau in their desire to utilise their land whether that be for housing or for economic development or other purposes. I also sat as a commissioner on the papa kāinga plan change for the Whangarei District Council.So the reasons why I am not supporting these wholesale changes to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is because I think that a lot of the issues have been in other pieces of legislation which this would not have addressed but it is also in the lack of policy. And really—and I was talking about it with the Hon Kiritapu Allan who has also had extensive experience with Māori land—it's the lack of funding available to whānau to be able to do things on their land. We shouldn't have to change the legislation for them to be able to access the funding.So I want to talk about the things that this Government has been doing which I think addresses some of the issues that this bill was proposing to change. So first and foremost I'm very proud of the legislation introduced by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta the whenua Māori rating amendment bill. That legislation was over a hundred years old and as I said from my experience on the Far North District Council knowing how much Māori land had rates arrears on it when this was land that had never been used never been able to be utilised was one of the reasons why whānau believed that they couldn't now be in a position to either do housing or development on their lands because of the huge rates arrears that were on their whenua. Now with that legislation councils are able to write off those rates arrears not have to wait for the six years to be able to do that. They can write that off. And that is one of the major barriers I think to whānau being able to progress any of their aspirations with their whenua.At the time the Minister said that the bill was part of a wider set of initiatives that the Government is working through that aim to provide Māori landowners with tools to support them to use develop and live on their land and to support whānau to reach their aspirations and the full potential of their land removing obstacles so Māori and local authorities can develop strong relationships and remove those historical rates arrears and apply a non-rating clause to land that we know isn't currently being utilised.But in the minute that I've got remaining I want to talk about a couple of other initiatives. We did pass amendments to te ture whenua to address more streamlined succession. There's an alternative dispute resolution process in there where whānau can use tikanga-based mediations. These are some of the things that this bill proposed which we have in fact already changed in legislation. But most recently the change to the Kāinga Whenua Loan Scheme cap from $200000 to $500000 I think is more realistic for what it costs for whānau to build houses on whenua Māori. And then the final one is the Te Ringa Hāpai Whenua Fund. So in 2019 we had $100 million contestable fund for whānau with aspirations to develop their whenua and in Budget 2022 an additional $10 million to realise their aspirations. So I want to commend the Ministers the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and the Hon Willie Jackson who have been doing a huge amount of work in this area with policy and legislative changes and funding to support whānau to realise their aspirations. I think that's what is desperately needed. Kia ora.