Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): The Hon Meka Whaitiri thank you Mr Speaker. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon Meka Whaitiri.Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: Listen I want to just add again from the contributions I've made on this bill that I fail to see the urgency. I fail to see the urgency in why this bill is coming to the House. I do want to acknowledge the Minister's answer to my question around the preservation of the Tiriti partners' rights. She did underscore that this is permit holders. She further underscored that there will be no further breaches for those iwi who currently have claims to Crown minerals around the country and I think that's important that that underscoring goes on the record for those iwi. The reason why I'm opposing it is because it's not been given due consideration particularly around going to select committee and hearing from those impacted iwi who have years and years of case law and I guess case claims to the fact that they have interests and rights in Crown minerals. Like I said the Minister did answer the question around why there's distinction around this bill to what I've raised earlier which is that this is just for permit holders. But again we haven't allowed our Treaty partners to have a say in how this is going to impact and so it is unclear to me what the urgency is. I have listened to why there is urgency; I can't find it. There are members of the Government that just say that it's a simple bill but those are the ones that often alienate the Treaty partners in this country—it's those simple bills. But again we've got a democracy in this country. We test it and it goes off to the select committee but in this case we've bypassed that. Members on that side feel that that's OK and yet members on that side who represent a particular region who have for years and years put claims around their rights and interests to what we're talking about here tonight—I think that speaks for itself. So I stand again as I did in the second reading and through the committee stage to oppose this bill because it has not been given due consideration. It has not allowed the Tiriti partner to put down what they think. Even though they may not be permit holders they do have rights and interests and want to test that their rights going forward aren't further breached. We just heard tonight from the Minister that she felt the advice that she got was that it would not be further breached but again we haven't heard from the other side of the coin. That was my whole point in asking the questions I did to the Minister. So people will now hear—it is on record in this House—that this passage of this bill does not impact iwi rights and interests that it's limited to those with permit holders and that future considerations will be not impacted. But again that's purely from the Government's side. It would have been balanced if we allowed it to go to select committee to hear like I said from the Treaty partners. So it's sad because we do have the Wai 796 Petroleum Report that has been tabled. It did declare iwi rights and interests to petroleum and minerals on their land which this bill does have an impact on. But again we don't need to hear from them because it doesn't impact on them and it doesn't impact on their future claims. Therefore we are hearing tonight from the Government that there are no further future breaches of Te Tiriti. So we'll leave that there because again there are contemporary claims. But for those that currently have claims it is now on record that the Government feels that there is no future breach and it doesn't impact on them and I'm sure that that will go some way in furthering their claims when we talk about this Energy Resources Levy Amendment Bill. So with those few words we will oppose this bill.