Mahuta Nanaia: Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16635. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato):It gives me great pleasure to be able to make a contribution today on the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Bill. It is an innovative approach to look at how co-management of maunga can occur in the Auckland area. Auckland is indeed our biggest city and the bill will stretch I think some of the aspirations that locals have for the ongoing preservation and management of maunga so it is a very courageous step. We received at the Māori Affairs Committee nine submissions and we heard them all in Auckland. There are four particular issues that I want to bring to the House hoping that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations may consider a response to some aspects that I will raise in the Committee stage of the bill.Firstly I want to commend the Friends of Maungawhau who came to the select committee. They demonstrated a great deal of passion and commitment to seeing Maungawhau which is Mount Eden restored and preserved so that all New Zealanders and visitors coming to Auckland can benefit from the beauty there. They were integral in campaigning for the removal of cattle and buses going up to Mount Eden and they should be commended for that. They participate in the life of restoring natural vegetation on the maunga and ongoing protection of the values of that particular maunga. What they represented for Maungawhau I think a number of other groups will represent for many maunga around the Auckland area.It would be very helpful to the broader interests of Auckland I think if the Minister were of a mind to respond in the Committee stage to two issues that the Friends of Maungawhau raised. The two issues were in particular when integrated management plans are being prepared for Maungawhau in the co-management arrangement whether consideration could be given to existing plans. In the instance of Mount Eden the local board has a plan for Maungawhau. There was some concern that a clean-slate approach might be taken when new plans were developed for the ongoing management of these maunga. I thought that was a really good point and what it did certainly give insight into for the committee was that we were not approaching this new co-management arrangement with an entirely clean slate and that there were groups already actively involved and committed to the ongoing management of the maunga. So that is the first issue.The second issue again can be more generically applied and that is whether in the interests of transparency and openness to the public about management plans and the creation of them the consultation provisions could be more overt and express in terms of how the public engage in the creation of the plans through the Maunga Authority.Upon hearing this particular submission I felt that public consultation cannot be taken for granted and that in instances where there is a genuine attempt through the Treaty settlement process to assure the broader interests of New Zealand this is a step forward not a step back. The issue of public consultation then becomes one of the litmus tests for good engagement that preserves and protects the values of Māori within a new management regime but also makes clear to the general public that those aspirations that will have a general benefit can also be reflected. This can be done in a tangible way through a public consultation process and reflected in the integrated management plans that fall through that particular process. So Minister I am hoping that in the Committee stage you might be of a mind to either give an assurance that the bill will continue to do that or perhaps look to some of the suggestions that were made to the select committee to amend the bill accordingly. We understand as a select committee that it is entirely inappropriate for us to change the terms of a Treaty settlement but I certainly felt that those were two compelling issues that came out of that submission.The second issue that kind of exercised my mind was the issues brought to the table by Watercare Services. By and large it had a concern that in the transferring of an administering responsibility to the Maunga Authority it would be unclear whom it would consult with if it had future infrastructure and easement aspirations for the works that it wanted to carry out. I was sufficiently I guess assured through the advice that we received from the officials on this matter that actually the trustee and owner whom Watercare Services would readily identify with and consult with was vested in the Tūpuna Taonga o Tāmaki Makaurau Trust. That is certainly my understanding from reading the bill and how I read the officials’ report so it is very clear that it has a point of contact and that its current interests would not be prejudicially affected. In fact our select committee basically expressed that in the report. So we did not make any changes to accommodate Watercare Services.However I would acknowledge that whereas for both the purposes of the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act there would be a clear point of contact for Watercare Services if on the other hand Watercare Services invoked the Public Works Act to put a pipeline through one of the maunga. That is a matter of such significant interest to a whole lot of people not just the iwi concerned that I think it would be a matter of broad public debate. I would find it hard to believe that Watercare Services would do that and it would be a matter of such significance that there would be a full range of affected parties who would want to express their concern. So the interests of Watercare Services I think are probably well protected under the bill.The third point for me was the issue that was raised by Waikato-Tainui who reached a settlement in 1995. They asserted that the interests around Māngere mountain in particular were prejudicially affected by this bill because there was a provision for first right of refusal over Māngere mountain if the Crown ever sold off the reserve part of that mountain. I think the hapū in the collective that really affirmed to me that the bill does not impinge negatively on that interest was Te Akitai who are situated the most directly near the mountain but also the other Waikato hapū who are also captured by the Waikato-Tainui settlement. That is Te Akitai Ngāti Tamaoho Ngāti Te Ata o Waiohua and Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki. It seems to me that the way in which the bill is intended to work albeit representing the collective interests of all the iwi in Auckland is that where there is a maunga in a particular area where mana whenua interests are expressed they will have a more direct relationship with the issues around the ongoing management of the maunga. That certainly was reflected in the submission that came to us from Te Akitai. On that front I think we were sufficiently able to say that no the interests represented by Waikato-Tainui had been taken care of.As Shane Jones mentioned the committee did raise with officials the issue of multiple naming. We were told that the New Zealand Geographic Board would not allow for multiple names but let it be known that in the advice that we received from the officials there is a table in Appendix B that outlines the multiple names for each of the areas where an English name exists in the bill. I think that for the purposes of time in my third reading speech I will come back and recognise the multiple Pākehā names that have been represented in the bill but this is the one point that I would like to make now: if in the future the New Zealand Geographic Board provided for multiple names to be recognised the only real challenge is what the common usage name in the area would be. That is a policy matter that I think would have to be further thought through so that we could give the public a general assurance that we are all talking about the same place and so that at a practical level on the GPS when you are trying to get somewhere you are all going to get to where you need to go.At another level in terms of telling the history of New Zealand having multiple names I think further enriches the places and the connections that you have to areas throughout the country. All too often it is convenient to not use the right name and to then totally reject the local history that exists in the area.As this is a second reading speech I will say that I think the select committee thought long and hard about the issues brought before us. We did make some technical amendments to the bill. They have been outlined. In the Committee stage I am just hopeful that two of those issues could be responded to by the Minister so that we can perhaps further strengthen the intent which is good co-management for the maunga in the Auckland area. Kia ora.