Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I want to echo the remarks of my colleague the Hon Simon Bridges. I do believe that this bill has been misnamed—I do believe that—and I do want to urge the Minister to consider a name change. We've heard some good suggestions from members on this side of the House but it is critical when passing legislation in this Parliament that the Parliament names bills accurately because people go and look up those bills. They go to the Legislation website and they go and look up the bills and they use the key words in the title. So it's very important that the legislation is named for what it is and I do not believe that the title of the bill reflects accurately what it does.The current title is Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill but the whole premise of the Minister's argument so far around that has been misplaced. Actually the bill should be called Local Electoral (Incentivising Māori Wards) Amendment Bill". That is the purpose of the bill. In the Minister's own words that is the purpose of the bill and she needs to be transparent and upfront about that fact.Why do I say that—why do I say that? For two reasons. First of all the bill provides—after the bill is passed the law will be—that when a council proposes general wards they've got to go through all the normal processes. They've got to publicise it they've got to notify it they've got to go out to the public and they've got to hear submissions. I mean I've seen my own local council do it. It's quite a process. They've got to go through all that. No dramas. No one's got any objection to doing that. That's actually what should happen when you're making changes to the wards of a local council. But once the bill passes that won't be the case for Māori wards. All of that is removed—that is not the case for Māori wards.So all of a sudden what we'll have is two separate processes. For general wards councils have got to go out they've got to consult they've got to publicly notify they've got to put it in the Gazette probably or at least the local paper. They've got to consult they've got to have endless rounds of submissions. There'll be the bureaucrats working on it analysing it—Hon Members: Appeal rights.CHRIS BISHOP: What's that?Hon Dr Nick Smith: There's appeal rights.CHRIS BISHOP: Appeal rights—that's right as Dr Nick Smith and Mr Luxon point out. So that's all fine. But then for Māori wards: no need for that. The bill specifically removes all of those requirements. So where's the standard here? Where's the double standard here? The reason to do that is as the Minister says because we want more Māori wards. OK that is a policy position. I don't think it's a defensible one but that's a policy position. Call the bill for what it is which is the incentive to create more because on the one hand general wards there's quite a process to go through. It's a cumbersome process. Māori wards: no process—easy as you like. That's the first reason.The second reason is the bill changes section 9 of the Local Electoral Act because it explicitly excludes a poll on Māori wards. It says you can't do it. And for other general wards councils can go and have a poll. For other issues councils can go and have a poll but what is it with this Government and their opposition to polls? What is wrong with the local council deciding "You know what we actually want to go and consult our constituents"—or at least ratepayers in this case—"as to whether or not they're happy with a Māori ward." and they may well be. I suspect most of them won't be but they may well be. But the bill says you can't do that. The bill says to the council that you can do it if you want to change the boundaries of a particular ward in a particular part of the district or the territorial authority. If you want to change a number of representatives that that particular ward has if you want to go from two down to one or if you do what my council did in the last election which was they went from all the councils elected two per ward down to half being elected in the ward and half being elected at large. If you want to go out and do that have a poll get a sense of what the community thinks about it that's hunky-dory go for gold. But if you want to go out to the public and say "Hey the ratepayers of XYX district we're thinking about dividing the population not by where you live but by race" which I suspect people will be upset about the bill says you can't do that.So what is the point of the legislation? The point of the legislation is to incentivise Māori wards because it creates double standards around their creation. My question to the Minister is: why not call it the "Local Electoral (Incentivising Māori Wards) Amendment Bill"? Because that's what it does and that's what the Minister wants it to do."