Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): Kia ora. I roto i Te Reo Māori i te tuatahi—in the Māori language firstly. Tēnei mātou te tautoko nei i te pire nei. Tēnei pire hira noa atu i te pire i hinga ai tērā hoa ōku a Te Ururoa Flavell nōna i roto i Te Whare Pāremata. Kotahi anake te take i pokea ai tērā tangata me tana hikoi i roto i te ao tōrangapū ko te pire whakamutunga i whārikitia ai ki roto i Te Whare nei. Tēnei pire? Ka nui noa atu tana pai. Hira atu i te pire tawhito.Ahau e tū nei me te rangatira o tō mātou rōpū ka nui noa atu tō mātou taunga ki ngā pūngāwerewere o tēnei pire. Ahau rawa nāku taku pāpā i āwhina kia haere atu ki te kōti kia whakawhiwhia mai ki a ia tētahi paku pānga mō tētahi whenua iti. Ka hia noa atu te roa ka mate taku pāpā. Horekau tēnā take i oti. Koia tāku e tautoko nei kia tū ai tētahi mana takawaenga e oti ai i roto i te whānau i te hapū rānei hei ā wai rānei ngā pānga ka whiwhi ko wai rānei te rōpū e tika ana kia whakatūria hei pupuru i ēnei kongakonga. Nā koia tēnā tetahi wahanga ka nui noa atu te tautoko atu i a mātou nā runga i tō mātou taunga me ngā kārawarawa kei o mātou tuarā Māori mō te roa noa atu o te wā e wheke ana e okeoke ana mātou kia whakawhiwhia mai ngā pānga. Kei ahau kei tōku whānau ētahi pānga e hoki ana ki te wā o taku tupuna whaea te kuia nāna ahau i napinapi nōku i te tamariki. Tērā kuia whānau mai i te tau 1892. Ka pērā rawa te roa o te wā kāhore anō kia oti i roto i ētahi o ā mātou nei toronga te whakawhiwhi i ngā pānga i tīmata mai tō mātou kuia. Pērā rawa te pūngāwerewere o ngā take e pā ana ki te kōti nei. Me pēhea rānei ngā take iti nei e whakamāmāngia ai? Ara tētahi atu take māku te kī—me pēhea rānei he whare e waihangatia ai ki runga i te whenua Māori? Ahau e mahara ana ki te wā i te mana a Helen Clark. Ko tana Minita mō Te Hanga Whare ko Sandra Lee. Hōnore Sandra Lee. Whakamatua? Whaka-aha rānei tana ingoa Māori nō roto i a Ngāi Tahu. Ka mutu tērā wahine ka haere atu ki te taha o Dover Samuels ki roto i Te Tai Tokerau ko te tau 2000. Rua mano! Take o rātou i haere ai ki reira? i toro tētahi whare ki Matauri ka mate te mokopuna i roto i tērā whare. Mai i tērā wā tae noa mai ki tēnei rā kei te pokepoke tonutia o tātou whenua Māori te korenga e āhei ki te whakatū he whare hei noho mā te whānau.Nā tētahi wāhanga e oti ana i konei kia āhei ai te hunga nō rātou te whenua kia whakanekehia ai te roa o te wā e oti i a rātou te noho pūmau ki runga i tērā whenua. Me tautoko mārika tēnei whare i tēnei wāhanga tā te mea ko te hunga e tino tāmia ana mō te kore whare mō te mate mītara me ētahi atu take ka hia rānei te tinitini e hamahama nei nā ko te iwi Māori.He wā anō māua ko taku rangatira kei te werawera o māua i tō māua iwi tō tātou iwi Māori pua noa mā rātou anō rātou e whakatikatika engari me pēhea rānei e rātou e oti i tētahi kaupapa kia pai ai kia pai ake tō rātou noho pēna pūngāwereweretia ana o rātou pānga ki roto i te ture o te whenua Māori?[Greetings. In the Māori language firstly. We support this bill—this bill which is much better than the bill that befell my friend Te Ururoa Flavell when he was in Parliament. There was only one thing that dragged him down politically and it was the final bill he presented in this House. This bill? It is much better; this bill is much better than the prior one.I stand here today alongside the leader of our party and we very much agree with the reach of this bill.For me personally I went with my father to court to try and sort out a matter about him receiving a small number of shares in a small parcel of land. After who knows how long my father passed away. His matter had not been resolved. That's why I support the establishment of a mediating authority be it within the whānau or the hapū to vest shares within the appropriate group which is established to hold these miniscule holdings. So we strongly support this section because of our familiarity with these aspects and the constant lashings we Māori receive who are angry and frustrated at the time it takes to receive shares. My family and I have shares that date back to my grandmother the grandmother who raised me when I was a little boy. That grandmother was born in 1892. That is how long we have been waiting to receive shares in some of the blocks she has an interest in. That is how old some of these court matters are so how can these small matters be made easier?There is another matter I would like to speak on—how can we build houses on Māori land? For me I go back to the days when Helen Clark was in charge. Her Minister for Housing Construction was Sandra Lee. The Hon Sandra Lee. Whakamatua? Whaka-something or other—her Māori name from Ngāi Tahu. In the end she went with Dover Samuels to the North in the year 2000—2000! Her reason for going there? To visit a house in Matauri where a grandchild had died in that house. From that time all the way to the present day our Māori land is still being tied up unable to have houses for families built on it for them to live in.Now one thing is achieved here so that it becomes possible for those who own the land to change the length of occupancy on their land block. This House must support this clause because those who are adversely affected by homelessness by measles and are hammered by countless other issues are the Māori people.There could well come a time where my leader and I are criticised by our tribe or Māoridom generally but at the end of the day they have a degree of independence to deal with their own matters but really how can we do something constructive to deal with these long-outstanding issues of shares within the framework of Māori land laws?]I stand to support this bill. As I said in our Māori language part of the reason why it ought to be supported is that there is genuine hardship in trying to navigate our Māori Land Court system. Often that hardship is born of frustration of no clear direction and of a shortage of tools on how to resolve often very simple transmission issues.I've recited a story and I think New Zealanders do derive—certainly Māori New Zealanders—some confidence from hearing the parliamentarians of Māori extraction actually talk about experience. I gave the example of both my grandmother who was born in either 1892 1893—one of those two years—and her younger sister and to this day members of my own whānau have struggled to navigate the system to actually have the shares transferred to either an entity or to the next generation who are willing to use the land and create something more substantial or something that's possible with the myriad of services that exist today. So to the extent that a process will exist to enable us circumventing a very laboured process through the Māori Land Court we should be celebrating that.I also started off by saying that the last bill may have been ambitious the last bill may have even been heroic but I say to this House: it is that bill that caused my old head boy and friend Te Ururoa Flavell from St Stephen's School to lose his seat.So this issue of Māori land is most certainly an issue that can not only be vastly politicised but it strikes people in a way—in a Māori community—that they understand. The understanding that we're trying to enlarge today is that there will be a process where you can circumvent the court with an appropriate statutorily mandated mediation process. Now I've actually been on a mediation committee mandated by the Māori Land Court and it was chaired by Judge Hingston and a koroua from Te Arawa—the name eludes me. I had to leave the mediation meeting early because my former wife Ngāreta was having one of our seven children—I can't remember which one. The reason I was there is that it pertained to not only the mandate and the mana whenua of Rangitāne Kahungunu and Dannevirke but also the local government and resource management provisions. Naturally we made a decision the quality of which still shines many years later—though that's another matter. But it's just to demonstrate that those of us who come with not necessarily bags of professional experience as lawyers appearing before the court but actually trying to go through the court without lawyers are of the view that this is an improvement.On the question of papakāinga I dare say Mr Speaker yourself for the many years you've been in the House and not unlike my own leader—Lord knows how many iterations we've sat through debated either remits policy suggestions potential legislative amendments as to how we free up Māori land so that it can offer an opportunity for expanded housing. I think for a number of us who have straddled both the world of policy and trying to understand the ambitions of Māori constituents—and you don't need to be a Māori to suffer that malady—we've been exhausted by it. So to the extent that this bill enables the owners of Māori land either within a trust or in another sort of aggregation to free up that land to boost the supply of housing then we'll be doing something that my tuakana Dover Samuels struggled to do for the eventful period of time that he was here. I won't expand the word eventful" for fear it afflicting my good self. And at that stage he was aided by the Hon Sandra Lee who went to Ngāpuhi land around about the time in the Helen Clark Government when there was an awful tragedy and a fire in Matauri Bay and in that fire perished some mokopunas. I only tell that story because ever since then we've seen precious little movement on blocks of available Māori land to actually expand housing and to the extent that this might offer that solution then naturally we should support it because it is potentially—if we can get this provision in a more orderly fashion then you're freeing up a home purchaser from the obligation of having to buy the land. Now in Auckland I'm sure it's about $600000 or $700000 to buy a section in a half-decent part of Auckland. That in itself is grossly immoral—that in our own country as a consequence of worsening immigration and poor planning laws we're saddling the next generation with $600000 worth of debt before they even put a stick in the ground. However if you own Māori land then all you've got to focus on is the infrastructure associated with living and good sanitation. Don't buy the land pay a small rental and put the money into the actual physical infrastructure.Now for fear of causing the ire of the Labour Party to fall upon me I have similar ambitions for Ihumātao. Thank you very much."