Hayes JoanneELECTORAL (ENTRENCHMENT OF MĀORI SEATS) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 4 December. JO HAYES (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Before I start I too want to add my condolences to the families who have suffered through the Whakaari / White Island eruptions. I want to also send out my support to you Madam Speaker being the MP for the East Coast; to Tamati Coffey as well; and also to Kiritapu Allan for the work that you continue to do over there to support the people. So when I last spoke in the House around this bill I was reciting some of the reasons that people don't think that National care for Māori but we do. I was reciting some of the great attributes and some of the policies that we have been responsible for on this side of the House in supporting Māori in supporting the care that we have for Māori. I talked a little bit about the Māori Women's Welfare League that this side of the House established in 1951 along with the million-dollar fund that would help them to develop the Māori Women's Development Fund and the establishment of Te Wānanga o Raukawa in 1981 Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in 1993 and Te Wānanga o Awanuiārangi in 1997. These are examples of how much this side of the House cares about Māori. To support this bill is not a way to support Māori because we believe that Māori should have a choice to be able to be on the general roll or on the Māori roll. To entrench those seats now would mean that there was no choice—there was no choice—for Māori to be able to jump around between the general seats and the Māori seats. It takes away that choice for Māori to decide when the Māori seats will go. That's why on this side of the House we are not supporting this bill. In saying that I do want to acknowledge Rino Tirikatene for the work that he has done in getting this bill to the House and the discussions that he has had trying to get people across the line on it. I think that you know that's just the measure of the man really. At the end of the day he has worked very very hard for this bill. During the hearings it pained me a lot to hear some of the submitters saying that Māori list MPs were not a voice for Māori. That is actually a sad sad thing to say. Hon Amy Adams: Most of Labour are list MPs. JO HAYES: That's right. That's like 12 Māori voices silenced if that were to be the case—if that were to be the case—and a lot of them as my colleague over here the Hon Amy Adams has said on that side of the House are list MPs. To hear whānau say Māori list MPs do not speak for us. They do not have a voice for us." is to me blinding and I don't want to say "ignorant" but I'm going to say it's ignorant. I think that we need every single voice in this House for Māori regardless of whether they're electorate MPs or whether they are list MPs. In closing I just want to say that this side of the House we always get a bit of a beat up on bills like this and very very few times does the Government turn around and look at its coalition partner New Zealand First. I just want to say that in previous contributions on this bill it was talked about on that side of the House—on the Government side of the House—how the Māori seats were the ones that actually helped to get New Zealand First into Parliament all those years ago when they took out all the seven seats. That is to me when I hear things like that—we all know that that is what happened and then we hear the New Zealand First Party is not supporting this bill. It's fine on our side—we don't support this bill. We believe in freedom of choice. We believe that by taking and entrenching this bill it will take away the freedom of choice for Māori to decide when the Māori seats stay and when they will go. So I join with my colleagues on this side of the House. We do not support this bill. Thank you."