Turner Judy: Waka Umanga (Maori Corporations) Bill — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Waka Umanga (Maori Corporations) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13873] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 United Future’s introduction to this bill happened about 6 months ago. We were invited to a briefing that was apparently kick-starting a second round of consultation on the matter that this bill seeks to address. The first round was a series of 15 information hui that were conducted during October and November in 2006 when Justice Durie sought feedback on proposals for legislation contained in the Law Commission report 92  
Waka Umanga: A Proposed Law for Maori Governance Entities 
. What came out of his round of consultation was that tribal authorities felt that the existing legal provisions did not always provide adequately for tribes. For example they pointed out that incorporated societies where the law prohibited financial gain as an objective often did not suit their needs. Companies are designed for individual investors not for the management of communal assets. Trusts manage assets for beneficiaries rather than at their direction and charitable trusts are ultimately responsible to the Attorney-General rather than the affected people. Based on that kind of feedback and a range of other things that came out of that consultation process the ongoing work on this bill continued. 
Let me talk about some of the other concerns that Justice Durie highlighted as a result of that process. There were some real concerns around the issue of formation that there were major and debilitating disputes on how organisations should be formed to manage tribal affairs and assets. As the Green member Metiria Turei mentioned these disputes often delayed a settlement process while they were being worked through. The second consideration was that there was no independent and fair process for the ready resolution of such disputes so these disputes went on and on with no clear process in place to help settle them. The third concern was that the Treaty claims process had become overly determinant as to how tribes are being shaped for future generations and there were some concerns around that. The fourth concern was that the interests of smaller hapu groups may be washed out by larger settlements. The next concern was that there were no clear policies on voting rights for regular marae supporters and absentees and that the courts were reluctant to intervene on tribal formation disputes. All of these were issues that were raised during that process of consultation. 
There was an additional concern about the fact that at present there can be no finality about who represents a tribe in legal proceedings commercial transactions or consultations. Therefore United Future—and I am taking only a brief call—is happy to support this first reading because it seems sensible to us and it seems to honour the dialogue that has happened to date. We support this bill being referred to a select committee so that tribal groups can further investigate this option to see whether it has merit and whether it has any application for the legal needs that they have and therefore we are happy to support this first reading.