Mahuta Nanaia; Dean JacquiLOCAL ELECTORAL (MĀORI WARDS AND MĀORI CONSTITUENCIES) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): I move That the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.This bill is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government and for recognising the Crown/Māori relationship at a local level. The bill removes the poll option from the process for councils to establish Māori wards and constituencies and provides councils with a fresh opportunity to decide if they will have these wards at their 2022 local elections. This is an idea whose time has come. I say that because the establishment of Māori wards has not been an easy path over the last 20 years even though many communities and councils have tried. Evidently the poll option has proved a significant barrier and that is what we are going to fix through this bill.I'd like to start by thanking Te Komiti Whiriwhiri Take Māori and its chair Tāmati Coffey. The committee had a truncated time frame to hear submissions and report back. They met through the weekend to give as many submitters as possible the opportunity to have their say. There were 12508 submissions on this bill—that's about one submission every 10 seconds that submissions were open. It's great to see that despite the time pressures to get this in place for the 2022 local elections New Zealanders took the opportunity to have their say.I'd like to thank everyone who took time over the last week to prepare a written submission or to meet and present their views to the committee. A large number of these submissions were template-style submissions which of course we still take into account. But I want to focus on the 2805 individuals and organisations who wrote in with personalised messages of what this bill means to them in their communities. Two-thirds of those unique submitters strongly supported the bill this includes local government sector organisations including Local Government New Zealand and Taituarā; Local Government Professionals Aotearoa formerly the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM); Maruata representing elected Māori members; at least 21 local authorities; countless current and former local government elected members; iwi and Māori organisations from all around Aotearoa and not to mention thousands of individual Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders.I'm pleased but not surprised to hear that so many New Zealanders supported this change. They know that it's an idea whose time has come and a marker for what Aotearoa could and should be in the future. Importantly those views speak to the unique aspect of our democracy that recognises our founding document Te Tiriti o Waitangi—the Treaty of Waitangi. But I acknowledge that this support is not unanimous. Some submitters stated that urgency and the short select committee process is not warranted since the next local elections are 18 months away. Respectfully I disagree. After a council decides that it will have Māori wards it needs to go through a process to review its overall representation where it considers where the boundaries of both general and Māori wards will be and the total number of councillors. This process starts on 1 March and initial decisions must be made by 8 September. The legislation must be progressed quickly in order to give councils time to consider Māori wards through the transition period and then start their representation reviews.Some members opposite will say that there is no need for urgency and that this change could wait until the 2025 local elections. The truth is that this change is well overdue after 20 years of trying. We can now realise the ambition of increased Māori representation around council tables and we should do it with speed.I do want to highlight a point made by a number of submitters: that Māori wards are one of the measures to provide space for Māori in local decision-making processes. There were views that the bill is anti-democratic. I disagree. The bill recognises that the Treaty of Waitangi helps to shape and design a democracy that is of us—it belongs to us it is founded here in our country and it can only be found here in Aotearoa New Zealand.In 2010 the Waitangi Tribunal found that the Crown must ensure that its Tiriti obligations are upheld even when it delegates functions to local government and that includes the equal rights of Māori with other citizens when participating in democratic electoral processes. That same year the Human Rights Commission said that unless positive steps are taken to improve Māori electoral representation at local government the Māori voice will continue to languish."In 2017 prior to the election Marama Davidson's member's bill was introduced to repeal the poll provision. Although that bill was lost—even though Labour and the Greens supported it—it lives on in the actions we are taking today. In 2018 Andrew Judd the former Mayor of New Plymouth petitioned Parliament to remove the poll provisions. This was followed by two more petitions in 2020 which carried the weight of more than 11000 names of people who today should feel very proud of their part in the long fight to see this change made and the select committee made mention of those petitions in their report back to the House. There is no need to wait any longer.I want to acknowledge again those who submitted over the weekend and highlight for the House some of the points raised. The committee was told that it is wrong for councils to have one way to establish general wards and another way for Māori wards. Gisborne District Council called this an anomaly and Ngāi Tahu Māori Law Centre said "there is a double standard by which only Māori participation and representation in local government is subject to a general community review." Local Government New Zealand submitted that "The polls have reduced complex issues of voice and representation to a simple binary choice which by encouraging people to take sides damages race relations." I also reflect on the comments by Toni Boynton who told the committee that when Māori stand for general seats they sometimes feel like they have to limit their Māoriness to get elected but that this would not happen if there were Māori wards.I wish to conclude by talking about how this bill will impact on local communities. Over the past 20 years we've seen that when councils and iwi agree that the best path forward for their relationship is a Māori ward a small but vocal part of the community demand that this democratically made decision is undone. These petitions and polls harm the iwi-council relationship and stir up fear division and even violence in our local communities. Over the last few months I've seen reports that petitioners have not been clear about the implications of their petitions and that many people have signed up in error. I've seen reports of violence as people then try to get their names removed. I've heard from councils and iwi that the track record of these polls has made them so nervous about Māori wards that they don't put it on the council table even if they know it's right for their community. This is not the best version of Aotearoa New Zealand that we can be; we can be better.This bill lays the foundation for what we could be. It gets rid of a discriminatory provision and gives councils a new start at deciding whether to have Māori wards at their next elections without the prospect of a poll looming ahead of them. But just because the community can no longer veto the council's decision does not mean it should be excluded from the decision-making process. I issue mayors and councillors with this challenge: speak to your communities your iwi your hapū and decide whether this is the right path for you. When I consider the way in which Māori have put their hands up to respond to civil defence emergencies and all manner of challenges locally and participated in the regional growth conversation I know that this is an idea whose time has come.I acknowledge that some councils will not be able to establish a Māori ward because the proportion of their population on the Māori electoral roll is too low. Other councils may decide that Māori wards are not the most effective way to include the Māori perspective in their decision making—that's OK. Māori wards are only one tool available to you to improve Māori representation and participation. But Māori wards are an important step forward for many other councils that are seeking to improve the way they partner with and represent Māori in their communities.This bill is a humble but next step to improving local democracy to ensuring that our democracy is founded on the Treaty of Waitangi. Its focus is on supporting councils at their next elections in 2022. Enduring changes for the 2025 elections and beyond are on the way and I will bring another bill to this House later this parliamentary term when those changes are ready. For now I commend the bill to the House and I thank the select committee for their diligence.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."