Paraone Pita; Mallard TrevorPITA PARAONE (NZ First): Ā tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker tēnā anō tātou o Te Whare nei. He tū wāhi poto tēnei ki te tautoko i ngā mihi i mihingia e tō mātou tangata mai Te Wai Pounamu tana mihi ki tetahi o ngā rangatira i roto o Ngāi Tahu i hinga atu i te rā nei nā reira kei te tautoko i ngā mihi i mihingia e koe ki a ia. [Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker and greetings to us of this House once again. This is a brief call to endorse the tributes accorded by our man from the South Island to one of the leaders from within Ngāi Tahu who passed away today and so I support the tributes that you from the South Island made to him.]Listening to the debate so far has been very interesting. For New Zealand First we still have some disquiet about some of the issues particularly those that were expressed by the submitters who presented their submissions in Gisborne when the Māori Affairs Committee was there to listen to them. First of all I just want to acknowledge just how well the Wī Pere Trust has operated since its inception in 1899. I can recall my comments during the first reading of this bill that if it ain't broke why fix it given the number of assets that it had and that up until this point in time there has not been any major issue—well it certainly has not been made public. If there has then perhaps that is all the more reason why this bill should not go any further but we have not heard any adverse comment about how it has been operating and how it has been able to increase its asset base. One of the things for us in New Zealand First is that we are seriously looking at this issue of the quorum. Although the trust board may be made up of up to seven members I would suggest that that may not necessarily be the reality. Although it is there and available for them I would suggest that possibly in order to carry out the corporate work that corporates of this size normally do the fewer number of trustees you have the better. So I would think that it would probably take the option of limiting the size of its board to just five. But for New Zealand First with the trust having an asset base of $66 million and with the possibility of limiting the board to just three trustees we think that that needs to be looked at. Perhaps the wording in the bill should be more specific and say that it has to be seven trustees as opposed to no more than seven trustees. That is one of the points that New Zealand First is still looking at. The other point is this issue regarding the Māori Land Court. Although we support the notion that it should be left to the Māori Land Court to look at the lineal succession of shareholders we are also conscious of the fact that in a few days' weeks' or perhaps months' time we will be talking about Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill which as part of its intention actually removes that responsibility from the Māori Land Court and moves it back to what is regarded as a non-judicial entity known as the Māori Land Service. Listening to the discussion today I note that speakers are supporting the notion of leaving that responsibility to the Māori Land Court and yet in a few months' time we will be back in this House asking that it be removed from the Māori Land Court and passed on to the new Māori Land Service. For New Zealand First we have some issues regarding that. During the process of hearing submissions we heard from submitters their disquiet about some of the decisions that had been made by the trustees at the time without their knowledge. I am talking about contributions that were made to certain groups. We are not questioning the right of the trustees to do that but quite clearly there were beneficiaries who expressed a very strong disquiet about their trust making contributions to certain groups. I think that that is just an example of when the beneficiaries are either not interested or not able to keep up with what the trustees are doing. I think that as the intention of this bill is to allow the trust to move into a more corporate area then I would suggest to this House that a number of the beneficiaries unaware of the machinations of corporatisation will be lost in terms of the decisions that will be made going into the future. We are still of the view that the trust has been able to grow its asset base to the level that it has now under the system that has existed for most of the time of the trust. We would suggest that we are not convinced at this stage that—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise for interrupting the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 6 p.m.