Jones Shane: Maori Purposes Bill — First Reading 
Jones Shane: Maori Purposes Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15373] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou; greetings. This speech carries on from a flow of great ideas that was rudely interrupted last night but such is the timetable of the House. A part of the Maori Purposes Bill that Labour members are very keen to support lies in Part 2. Unlike Maori members of the House who are not in the Labour Party I will not read a prepared speech; I will speak as a parliamentarian should do from prior experience and from the heart. 
Part 2 enables Maori asset-owning organisations that hold interests in the fishing industry to go through a transition of structural reform without having to add an additional burden on to what is essentially a bureaucratic process. It will allow organisations when they restructure to move from one organisation that is deemed to hold the mandate for iwi governance purposes to another organisation. That is sensible because the social and political circumstances surrounding Maori are not static; they are dynamic. In order for this dynamism to continue unabated we must not and should not leave in law impediments that create additional costs for people wanting to ensure that the structures that hold the assets can change. We do not want to see people lumbered with structures ill-suited to the circumstances that they confront when trying to make revenue money and create dividends from the Treaty settlement endowments. 
In addition to that changes are contemplated in the operations of the Maori Land Court. The Maori Land Court as you would know Mr Assistant Speaker Roy is a source of great debate and dissension on the marae in Maoridom. At one level it is seen as an agent of dispossession; on the other side it is seen as an institution that safeguards the rights of current generations and also provides a buffer of support so that future generations will not lose their birthright or indeed their heritage that is tied up in land. At all times the judges of the Maori Land Court and the staff associated with the administration of the court need to be operating in an efficient manner that does not cause additional costs to lie upon the communities of Maori landowners who are probably in the lowest tax brackets. 
That reminds me that recently when the tax reform changes went through it was a source of considerable concern to our kaumatua and people around Maoridom that the Minister of Maori Affairs had overlooked the fact that Maori landowners now face a higher tax rate as a consequence of his inattention. As a consequence of his not moving the Maori landowner tax rate in a fashion commensurate with the other tax changes that the Hon Bill English brought in perversely enough those groups of taxpayers are at the moment lumbered with a disproportionately higher tax rate. I am quite sure the Minister will get around to it but I rather fear for his long-term survival—the election will arrive prior to that Act coming into force. 
I will continue by talking about other parts of this bill. A number of us on the Maori side of the parliamentarian community have had some experience with Maori trust boards. The trust boards were created in most cases during the 1900s and they were designed to enable the iwi and their leaders of that day to have corporate statutory organisations to hold their assets and to distribute the dividends. As governance has improved a greater level of importance has been attached to the actual people who are the defined beneficiaries having authority over these organisations as opposed to the Minister of Maori Affairs. This bill moves in a direction whereby those organisations will not be responsible in an exclusive fashion to the Minister of Maori Affairs. Such changes have been promoted by the office of the Auditor-General who has a responsibility to audit these organisations on a regular basis. They often represent a very high cost in terms of their audit fees but that is another matter. This movement towards establishing the authority back with the people to exercise oversight in relation to these organisations is a development that should be welcomed. 
Of course these organisations nowadays are regarded as somewhat anachronistic. The Tainui Maori Trust Board the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board and a host of others have since been superseded—in the case of Ngai Tahu by their runanga and a variety of satellite organisations the papatupu organisations which give their major authority mandate. But underlying all these structures is the important principle which is why we are keen to support it that the people who are legally entitled to enjoy the fruits—or indeed suffer the costs if things go wrong—of the endowment have the authority to direct how the organisation should be run. Indeed they should have the authority to nominate—either appoint or elect directly—the people who will be the individual governors. Although it is a change that comes after a lot of protestation it is a change that signals that unless people are actually put in a position where they control what is happening to the organisations that they are putative owners of we cannot expect accountability to improve. 
In fact there is probably a good lesson here in terms of how organisations in mainstream society have gone off the boil as well. For everything that might be said of a negative character about Maori organisations they did not lose $6.5 billion that was turned into chaff as a consequence of the various directors and other people—some of whom will go to jail I hope—squandering all the money of the nanas and granddads and other investors which got poured into what has proven to be a bog of embarrassment called the financial sector community. So whenever I hear the ACT Party and others prattling on about problems with Maori stewardship I love to remind them that the last time I checked there were not very many Maori organisations involved in the $6.5 billion meltdown of investor wealth etc. It is almost as if when that happens in our Pakeha community it is natural so there is not a large hue and cry but when there is a fraction of that loss within Maoridom it constantly makes the front page. Unfortunately it is one of the crosses that Maori governance organisations have to bear. 
I will round up this contribution which is the final contribution from us on this side of the House. It is the calm before the storm because legislation is about to be debated that goes to the actual heart of Maori citizens’ individual well-being and wealth. But that is to do with labour relations and those speeches will soon follow. The fisheries structure has been a successful waka for Maori and it is not unrelated to the aquaculture changes which I support and I am glad that they are going to the Primary Production Committee. But the changes to the Maori fisheries iwi organisations and the changes to how Maori iwi organisations might eventually receive their 20 percent entitlement to aquaculture are connected and everything we do to improve the governance capabilities of those organisations and their ability to generate wealth should be supported. Na reira tena koutou tena tatou kia ora tatou katoa.