Luxon ChristopherNew clause 7A New sections 19ZGA and 19ZGB insertedCHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): Thank you for the opportunity to talk about this amendment in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 8 because I really think it's important. You know we said in the very beginning in the explanatory note of this bill that one of the policy intentions of the bill is to align the treatment of Māori wards and Māori constituencies with the treatment of general wards and general constituencies. That is one of the stated three objectives of what we're trying to do and yet it doesn't actually do that as we've been discussing over the course of the last day. It's really just about removing the right to past and future referendums as we've been talking about.I think this amendment is fundamentally what you see a lot from the National Party: a very practical very sensible good-faith SOP to make this bill better. I'm only a new parliamentarian but I was told that we may disagree with a bill but we should work together to try and make a bad bill better and that's what we've got to do. We hoped to do that in the select committee stage but we didn't get the opportunity to do that because none of our amendments were considered namely to take more time to actually have a proper debate and discussion about it. So we're in the spirit here of just trying to make a bad bill better.All it's doing here is fundamentally providing an opportunity for any person or any organisation to appeal a resolution to establish Māori wards. What is the normal process in a general ward as is proposed here is that in order to get that alignment with general wards someone who wants to appeal puts their appeal through to the Local Government Commission in the same way as general awards are done. I don't think that's an unreasonable request that fundamentally if the principle is that we want alignment between both general and Māori wards we should have very much alignment in the processes.The SOP does several things under new section 19ZGB. The first thing is it really is about making sure that Any person or organisation may lodge a written appeal against the decision of the territorial authority or … council" at that place of the council. The second thing it does is it then says it'll take that appeal and then it'll be forwarded on to the commission who will then resolve whether to—forward that appeal about resolving to create a Māori ward on to them. Then the commission is then left having received the appeal and the written appeal having had it forwarded on to them to consider the resolutions any submissions received any information that might be forwarded and then they can actually make a determination as to whether that Māori ward can and should be established based off the grounds that have been put forward—same process for a general ward exactly the same process as what we're proposing here.Then the fourth thing it does is it goes on and it says there must be notice in writing of every determination made by the Local Government Commission setting out the reasons for the determination and then that must be publicly published as a public notice and then a copy of that public notice sent through to the Surveyor-General the Government Statistician the Remuneration Authority and the Secretary for Local Government. Then the determination of the commission under subsection (3)(b) is in fact then final.So really what this SOP's fundamentally about is just providing that opportunity for any person or any organisation to appeal the resolution to establish Māori wards or Māori constituencies; take it to the Local Government Commission as is the current standard with general wards; do it in exactly the similar way; make sure that things are properly publicised notified submissions are heard consultation's taken place; and then a determination is made. I think as we've talked about before that is fundamentally something that I think we can do to get that alignment that we talked about at the very beginning of this bill. But importantly it's also something that we can do because it's actually a practical common-sense fair thing to do. It innately builds that same logic that these wards are treated in exactly the same way.I just want to encourage all the members on the other side to think deeply about that because that is a common-sense helpful SOP that we are putting forward in good faith in order to make this legislation much better much stronger. I really would ask them that they consider it. I'm reminded of their leader who said "Let's do this." and I'd just like us to do this one. This would be good—just do this one. We've done nothing else. This bill has gone through a sham process. We've done nothing else; we've changed nothing about it. But if you're serious about aligning it with general wards why don't we do that? So let's do this one—would be incredibly helpful. Thank you."