Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I love the Māori electoral option and this bill makes it better for people who choose to be on the Māori electoral roll. That's why I support it and that's why it's a simple speech and a short call from me.The What could this bill have been?" debate isn't what we're having tonight; it's about whether this bill is good for Māori voters and it is. It's good because it changes two very long-held complaints about the Māori roll that people have told the Electoral Commission multiple times and that my colleague Rino Tirikatene has advanced through the parliamentary process and has not been able to do without a Labour majority Government behind him. It is a change which Minister Allan has very carefully negotiated and has landed on a position that everyone around this House can be happy with and I am really proud that tonight we around this House agreed on something which has been so long negotiated.This sends a message—a really important message—to anyone watching but also to people who follow our electoral law reform process and to Māori voters that we in this House support the Māori seats. We in this House believe in their constitutional importance and we are going to make it easier and more accessible for people who choose to be on the Māori electoral option to choose to be voting for those seats. That's so important—what we're doing today—and I'm really proud to be giving this kōrero.So there's two issues: when you can change rolls and the frequency of being able to change rolls. Those are the two things that this bill deals with. It doesn't change who's on the roll and it doesn't change how you get on the roll but those are two things that have come through time and time again as being confusing and frustrating for Māori voters. It's a change that's really about fairness and increasing access. It's about reducing the electoral barriers that Māori voters face and that they tell us at the Justice Committee and the Electoral Commission are barriers to their more meaningful participation in our electoral system. It's something everyone around this House supports—increasing access to participation in our democracy—and it's something that I reflected on while listening to the speeches around the House. It's a really important and unique feature of our electoral system which actually protects us from some of the more vitriolic politics that we see overseas—you know that divisiveness the culture war that is characteristic of some of the democracies that we compare ourselves to in modern social media - driven electoral campaigns where race-based politics and where huge class divisions play out on a national scale and are bruising for our communities. The fact that we have a Māori electoral option where people feel heard where people feel themselves reflected in the people who represent them and where people get to choose what kind of say they have in their election—for a group that has felt the effects of colonisation and has been the most marginalised in our history that is really really important to the way that we have that conversation about our culture and about the way that we get along with one another under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the way that we progress. I'm really proud that we have this option. I'm really proud that we have agreed tonight on something that will be enduring to make it more fair and accessible for Māori to participate. That's why I commend this bill."