Hayes Joanne; Tolley AnneJO HAYES (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the Electoral (Entrenchment of Māori Seats) Amendment Bill in the name of Rino Tirikatene in the second reading. I just want to go down a little bit of history for National because National did actually represent themselves in the Māori seats right up until the year 2002. I think that was the last time we stood in a Māori seat. Whilst we never won a seat we got quite close to winning a seat and that was OK. That was OK that we came close because yes we did represent ourselves. As history has shown yes we no longer stand in the Māori seats. We no longer stand candidates in the Māori seats.To say that the Māori on this side do not care is just an insult. Many of you don't know what goes on behind closed doors on the National Party side. Many of you don't know the discussions that we have had and the agreements that we have come out with. To say that National does not care about Māori is very very untrue—very untrue—because we do care about Māori. We have done this. We have worked with Māori throughout our history as a party. If we had no care for Māori why would we have bothered to actually settle over 58 Treaty claims in a nine-year period? Why would we have even bothered to do that? It was those claims that have actually added to the economy to the building of the Māori economy over those nine years and we can see that all growing now: $50 billion worth of Māori economy and a lot of that is based on a Māori agricultural base as well as the Treaty settlement claim funds that have come out and the development that they have gone through over that period of time.To say that National does not care about Māori—why is it that National was the first Pākehā political party to partner with the first independent political Māori Party? They didn't belong to any Pākehā organisation like most of us sitting in this room today. They did not do that and we brought them through into Government. We didn't leave them on the side. We brought them into Government with us. We gave them an opportunity with Whānau Ora and a host of other bills that we supported the Māori Party on. Is that a party that does not care about Māori? It is not.Finally I just want to talk a little bit more about National caring. The Māori organisations we've set up over our history the Māori Women's Welfare League the Māori providers—all of those groups have actually helped to enhance Māori and their futures and they continue today. The Māori Council Māori Television—those were all initiatives done under a Pākehā political party the National Party. So when we start to look at all of those things that National has actually started—we have left behind for this Labour Government a number of Treaty settlement bills for them to actually complete. How many have been completed in the two years? Six. Four of those were National Party Treaty claims. To say that we don't care is terrible because we do.We even supported the Waitangi trust and continue to respect the kaupapa of Rātana the Kīngitanga and of course Waitangi on 6 February every year. We are a party that cares. We care more than what New Zealand First did—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.