Jones Shane: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
Jones Shane: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6395] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. That folks was National’s contribution to artificial intelligence. That was a speech that despite hours of studying the mirror and days of rehearsing failed the test of being a political contribution and will be remembered as a variation on selling Girl Guide biscuits. That speech is reflective of how out of touch the member Nikki Kaye is and of how poorly— 
John Hayes 
: Pompous arrogance. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: OK so that is what we are getting from members on the other side of the Chamber. Rather than debating the issues they have fallen into a tawdry type of behaviour that of assassinating the personalities on this side of the Chamber who seek to uphold democracy. Of course a number of those members are living proof—and it was evident during their contributions at the select committee—that stupidity is permanent but ignorance can be rectified all of which they failed to develop. 
I will turn my attention to the Maori Party. We set up a subcommittee at great cost to investigate whether there should be Maori seats. Despite the fact that Georgina te Heuheu had every opportunity to join that subcommittee—along with another Minister—she a member who had earlier shown her colours as being willing to stand up for Maori seats was nowhere to be seen. It fell to Tau Henare to lead that subcommittee. Of course he is a person who knows that whoever strikes the first blow loses the argument. However he led us on to the marae and all the work that was done there was null and void because people were lied to. People were told by senior members of the Government to come and make their submissions. 
The fatal flaw of the Maori Party’s argument was that it believed it could run a model that was very complicated. Dr Pita Sharples sought to sell it to the Government and it was so far from what the average Maori wants in electoral reform in local government. In fact it was so absurd that if one followed through the Maori Party’s obsession with the mana whenua argument Pita Sharples himself would not be in this House. But the mistake that those members made was that they falsely believed they had such leverage over the party that ruled the Government coalition that they mistakenly thought their leverage was larger than the history and the integrity of the royal commission report. They went out fomented a hikoi and left expectations amongst young Maori that they would deliver but they never ever had the opportunity they never had the ballast to deliver on that. The egregious error that they made was that they thought they were better than $5.5 million worth of submissions recommendations and thousands and thousands of hours of deliberations. It shows the way in which they have over-estimated their relevance to this Government. 
We supported Maori seats. We were the party supporting Maori seats when the Auckland Regional Council—despite the meanderings of Michael Bassett in the newspaper—created two Maori seats. They were snuffed out by Warren Cooper and that wretched Government of the early 1990s but we are the party with the track record with regard to Maori seats. We did not at the end of the day as I indicated to my fellow Northlander Mr John Carter support mana whenua seats. We supported one person one vote. We did not support the entrenchment of the interests of hapus that are largely at war with each other iwis that cannot agree on territory. We wanted that to remain in customary space not to pollute or weaken civic space which is what elections should be about in local government. Every opportunity existed for that innovation to be brought into local government. 
National had no intention of ever satisfying the Maori Party or Maori voters. But why did Dr Pita Sharples continue to build expectations and not only in the minds of Tuku Morgan and Ngati Whatua? It is because Maori Party members overestimated their relevance. Kia ora tatou.