Davis KelvinKELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Labour was in support of the Wī Pere Trust bill. The Wī Pere Trust is a fantastic organisation that was set up by an inspired tupuna of theirs back in the 1800s and early 1900s. He did remarkable work. It is a trust that has millions of dollars in assets now and is doing a fantastic job for its beneficiaries. It is really disappointing though to come here and to see that 15 minutes before the bell was rung this afternoon three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) were dumped on us and we knew nothing about them whatsoever. It would have been a matter of courtesy to say to the MPs and to the other parties: Look this is what's going to happen and these are the minor changes and technical amendments." Chances are we would have understood them and supported them. Unfortunately we have been asked to support something we have had a brief look at and do not really fully understand the ins and outs. In fact the SOP to do with Te Ture Whenua Maori—it is quite ironic today in the Māori Affairs Committee we were talking about Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. It is a thick piece of legislation that has been introduced. We are really concerned to get it right. We want to work through it clause by clause and make sure that if that bill is going to go through and pass in this House that we get it absolutely right for our people. So it is really disappointing to turn up this afternoon and 15 minutes before the bell is rung there is an SOP that is probably more than just a minor amendment to Te Ture Whenua—there are about 3½ pages of changes and we have not had an opportunity whatsoever as a Labour Māori caucus to have a look at them and go over them. We have not been briefed by any officials we have not been briefed by the Minister and what we have been asked to do is just take a leap of faith and agree to amendments to a bill that we are actually debating in the Māori Affairs Committee at the moment in quite a substantial way. I think it is really unfair I say to the Minister in the chair the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell to have done this to us when really a simple phone call would have sufficed even as late as yesterday. I look at the SOP from Meka Whaitiri—that was tabled on 25 August and here we are in October. On 12 October we are given three SOPs to go through. Te Rarawa legislation—I believe that this will be similar to what Te Rarawa approached me on last year in terms of just making it a little bit easier for them to manage their fisheries assets so I have got a bit of background on that SOP but I do not really have a background on the other two SOPs. It is just really disappointing that we have to stand here and talk about stuff that we are not yet fully au fait with even though the Minister says that they are minor and technical amendments. What it has done though is it has opened up the opportunity for us to debate more SOPs that Labour will be putting forward to do with Māori policy and we look forward to the later stages. In Part 4 I believe there is actually a Māori Housing Act and we are looking forward to getting our teeth into debating a lot of material around Māori housing. But at this stage the Wī Pere Trust itself—it could have been all over pretty quickly into this evening. I just want to touch again on Meka Whaitiri's SOP and I think it is really good. It is disappointing that the National Government is not going to support it. What the bill is proposing in its current form is that if there is an issue that whānau have to go to the High Court to sort it out. We are saying that the better pathway for Māori is to go through the Māori Land Court the reason being that the Māori Land Court is a lot cheaper and it is easier for whānau to have access to that court whereas the High Court is a lot more expensive. The benefit of going to the High Court is that things get dealt with a lot more quickly whereas in the Māori Land Court it takes a lot longer. The Wī Pere Trust would no doubt prefer—because they do have money they would be able to access the High Court they would be able to get decisions based around their business done a lot more quickly but it is the whānau and the beneficiaries who would struggle to go into the High Court and pay to have their issue examined by the High Court. They would much prefer that they go to the Māori Land Court even though it may take longer. Whānau are a lot more au fait with and a lot more comfortable in the Māori Land Court—certainly I think it is about $50 plus GST to file something in the Māori Land Court. Therefore we in the Labour Party are saying that the Māori Land Court would be the better option to have these issues dealt with because whānau can actually access and afford to access the Māori Land Court. So there is going to be a lot of discussion around the Māori Purposes Bill. The door has been opened for us to discuss a number of options. Like I say I am looking forward to discussing the Māori Housing Act in Part 4 I believe it is but I will leave it for now. Kia ora."