Mallard TrevorPart 3 Ownership interests in Māori freehold landThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The question now is that Part 3 which is debate on clauses 45 to 95 and schedule 2 stand part. Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Part 3 of the bill addresses ownership interests provides for a collective ownership model provides a framework to support owner decision-making provides for whānau trusts and replaces the kaitiaki trust in the current Act with the kaiwhakamarumaru model mentioned earlier in the debate. The existing regime for Māori land has resulted in huge fragmentation of ownership so that today there are approximately 2.7 million ownership interests in Māori freehold land. To put this into context 5 percent of New Zealand's land area has approximately 2.7 million ownership interests while the other 95 percent has approximately just 1.7 million ownership interests. The number of owners for each parcel ranges from one through to more than 14600 with an average of just over 98 owners per parcel so this represents a unique set of challenges and has contributed to significant disconnection of current generations from our land. Part 3 addresses the effect of fragmented ownership by allowing owners to collectivise their ownership interests and making it easier for owners to set up trusts that allow whānau to collectively hold and manage their land interests. Under the bill owners can establish a whānau trust themselves by simply registering a declaration of trust instead of having to make an application to the Māori Land Court attend a hearing and have the court decide whether the trust should be established as is currently the process. This part recognises the principle of mana motuhake and shifts the controls more to the owners by making it easier for them to make decisions about their land on their own rather than apply to the Māori Land Court to make the decision for them and that sort of discussion was hugely applauded in a number of the wānanga that were held as we took it around the country. Owners of Māori freehold land with a governance body are able to create their own decision-making processes. If a decision-making process is not included in the governance arrangement or if the land is not managed by a governance body the bill sets out a default process. This process has been carefully designed to ensure as many owners as possible are aware that a decision is to be made and will have the opportunity to participate. The processes for decision making are clear and transparent. Owners will be able to attend meetings as I said earlier in person via a proxy via a telephone internet technology such as Skype and online voting. This will make it easier for owners to live away from their whenua but still participate in decisions about their lands. The bill provides that decisions affecting the ownership and retention of Māori land must have the agreement of a minimum threshold of all of the ownership interests in the land. However other decisions can be made by owners who participate in the decision-making process. To put this more simply the decisions about what happens to the land must be made by all owners while the decisions about what happens on the land—such as appointing a governance body—can be made by participating owners. This is an important distinction that unfortunately many of those who have criticised this aspect of the bill have not necessarily appreciated. The participating owner model addresses practical difficulties associated with decision making. For example it allows a binding decision to be made by the majority of the owners who participate in a meeting where a decision has been proposed even though the participation threshold for the decision has not been met. This second-chance mechanism cannot be used for decisions about what happens to the land such as the sale gifting or exchange of parcels of land. The participating owner model contains sufficient protections to ensure that a small group of owners are not able to hijack the process and dictate to the majority what happens to their land. These protections were strengthened by the Māori Affairs Committee which included a requirement that the Māori Land Court must confirm decisions made through the second-chance mechanism and specified that a decision-making process to revoke a governance agreement must be initiated by a greater proportion of the owners. Part 3 also replaces the jurisdiction of the Māori Land Court to establish kaitiaki trusts for owners under disability with a new jurisdiction to appoint kaiwhakamarumaru to manage certain property of an owner needing protection—namely owners under 18 years of age or owners who wholly or partly lack the capacity to manage their own affairs. These measures will ensure that owners who lack that capability can participate in decision-making processes about their land through kaiwhakamarumaru. The kaiwhakamarumaru regime is modelled on the provisions for the appointment of managers under the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988. As a consequence there are some differences between the new regime and the current model. For instance under the current model ownership of the person's land interests vests in the trustees of the kaitiaki trust. Under the new regime a kaiwhakamarumaru will not become the owner of the person's land interests as I explained a bit earlier. In light of that discussion that I presented to Miss Whaitiri this is another attempt to ensure that we set out all of the provisions in this section so that they are well documented for Hansard and into the future.