Whaitiri Meka: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Te Pire mō Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 April 2016. Volume:712;Page:10353. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Heamana e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa tēnā koutou katoa tēnā tātou. He mihi tuatahi ki ngā mate o te wā kua hinga e te tōtara o Hiruhārama e te rangatira e Whai haere haere haere atu rā.[Thank you Mr Chairman and greetings to you all members of the Parliament of New Zealand and to us all. First a tribute to the deaths of the moment and to you the tōtara tree of Hiruhārama esteemed one Whai depart farewell journey on.]I am pleased to take a call on this bill and I will try to stay within the time limits to give the other people a chance. Can I first acknowledge the Minister for Māori Development and his predecessor Dr Pita Sharples who initially introduced this bill. In terms of the part in the bill that talks about reaffirming the status of Te Reo Māori which is clause 3(2) in Part 1 I just want to say that the Minister outlined that that is the purpose of the bill and of course on this side of the Chamber who can refute that? But having said that after listening to the speakers and the contributions today I am going to go straight to the heart or the ngākau of the bill for me and that is around clauses 7A and 7B in Part 1 where we talk about the Māori language strategies.Really the bill is about updating the Māori language which is always important but at the end of the day it is just a tool to introduce Te Mātāwai and the language strategies. So when I read clauses 7A and 7B it talks about the Maihi Karauna and Maihi Māori strategies. We are setting up Te Mātāwai to help the Minister for Māori Development develop strategies. Maybe Minister Flavell can answer this. He has got a large ministry behind him and I cannot figure out for the life of me—and he may have a good answer—why we did not simply task his ministry all the groups that you have got listed in schedule 3A and obviously some of the iwi to actually work on a strategy that we could then be tossing over. But instead we are appointing a body to go away and work on a strategy. I know I need to be patient in this House but it is about our language and I want to make sure that it is available to all New Zealanders.That is my point around my comment about the lost opportunity. We are setting up people who have been very instrumental in our Reo to write up a strategy. For many of us there would not be a Government department around this town that has not got screeds and screeds of Te Reo Māori strategies. So my point is that here is an opportunity to fast-forward our Reo in terms of what hapū iwi and those deliverers of our Reo have been doing on their own to help make sure that this particular bill and commitment to our language is actually futureproof and fit for purpose.So I just make the comment that we will wait for the strategy to come out. Many of us have worked in the Public Service for many many years and we have seen strategies come and go. I guess I am just keen to see what makes this particular commitment to writing another set of strategies any more special in terms of delivering the desired outcome. I want to add the point that we also acknowledge that there are no new resources. I am not too sure how that is going to pan out.I go to my next point going from the strategy and moving into Te Mātāwai. The Minister is well aware that we have got so many different constructs of iwi Māori. I also want to support the New Zealand First member Pita Paraone’s comments about hapū. We have Māori entities set up under the Maori Fisheries Act. We have Māori entities set up under the rūnanga legislation. We have Māori organisations that are post-settlement governance entities. We have Māori organisations that are forced to come together under large natural groupings. When I look at this particular bill I am looking at schedule 3 where have got the list of iwi under the seven areas and I see you have a mixture of iwi and large natural groupings. I actually looked at mine Te Tai Rāwhiti and you have one missing there—Ngāti Rongomaiwahine which was actually acknowledged under the Maori Fisheries Act.