Whaitiri Meka: Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10993. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E ngā mema o Te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa. Whatungarongaro he tangata toitū he whenua—a man disappears from sight and the land will always remain. Labour’s position is unambiguously clear: we will not be supporting this bill to first reading. As Labour’s opening speaker along with my colleagues I will highlight why we are taking this position: specifically the concerns we have around the substance of the bill the process followed and the clear risks to Māori landowners.In my contribution I would like to cover three particular areas in this debate. First I want to provide a brief historic account of Māori’s relationship with whenua rights guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi and touch on the current Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. Then I want to make comment on the process that has brought this bill to the House and if time allows I want to make some constructive suggestions for the select committee to consider presuming the bill will be passed in the House today. Finally I want to touch on the substantive parts of the bill namely the significant change of the role of the Māori Land Court and the yet-to-be-established Māori Land Service and make comment on the critical issues facing Māori landowners that this bill does not comprehensively deal with namely landlocked land paper roads land acquired under the Public Works Act succession and ratings.The importance of land or whenua to Māori cannot be overstated. Our whenua has cultural and spiritual significance and is recognised as taonga tuku iho—a treasure handed down from earlier generations to be nurtured and looked after for the next generations. For iwi hapū and whānau our connection to our land is a connection to our personal and tribal identity. Strong legislation applying to Māori land is therefore essential to Māori not just in providing rules for governance of a key important resource but for maintaining the connection of people to their land and identity. The Tiriti o Waitangi principle requires effective protection mechanisms and properly informed broad-based support of Māori. This bill I believe has not fulfilled either of these requirements.After over a century of struggling with the effects of bad legislation that disadvantaged Māori and led to the massive loss of land a hard-won Crown-Māori consensus informed by the 1975 land march led by Dame Whina Cooper with a catchcry of “Not one more acre” resulted in our current law: Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993. Today Māori freehold land comprises of over 1.4 million acres—approximately 5.5 percent of New Zealand’s land mass. About 26 percent of Māori freehold land is in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. So in representing the many concerned landowners in my electorate I have actively led Labour’s response to the Government’s Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill.Why reform Māori land laws? The Crown asserts the current Act’s constraints have led to the underperformance of up to 80 percent of Māori land and believes new legislation will unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in returns for owners. This is exceptionally misleading. Under the Act many Māori entities are thriving economically. Wī Pere Trust Mangatū Blocks Incorporation in my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and Tuarōpaki Trust in the Minister for Māori Development’s own electorate of Waiariki are some fine examples of economic success under the Act.The current Act took more than 10 years to pass through the various stages of lawmaking. This shows the consideration required when attempting major changes to the relationship between Māori and their whenua. The New Zealand Māori Council and the Māori Women’s Welfare League were active political watchdogs of successive Governments at the time to ensure Māori land law had retention at its heart. The Law Commission also played a significant role.This bill replaces that hard-fought principle of retention with a principle of utilisation that in effect removes the protective mechanism of the Māori Land Court and introduces the alienating principle of engaged owners. This is a fundamental shift in this bill. It looks nothing like the Act. Not only is it a complete rewrite it takes the hard-fought principle of retention and overnight and without consultation in the dark of night replaces it with a corporate principle of use abuse and allows the elite privileged few to benefit at the expense of the many. This is why Labour is not supporting this bill at its first reading.Let us turn to the process. I have been critical of the process around the reforms because the Minister has not applied the necessary level of care. Since publishing the first draft bill in May 2015 the process has been characterised by a sense that the Minister is determined to rush through this bill come hell or high water. In terms of process let us look at the genuine lack of empirical research and problem definition. The Waitangi Tribunal found that the reforms have not been progressed with sufficient empirical research meaning that the Crown and Māori cannot be fully informed on the rationale for changes or on the implications arising from some changes proposed. The Waitangi Tribunal further states that reforming this legislation without genuine consultation and broad-based support from Māori would be a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Waitangi Tribunal declared that the consultation hui in June 2015 breached legal standards.There have been limited opportunities for Māori landowners to genuinely consider the newly proposed bill. I attended many of the hui including over half of the 21 hui hastily organised this February that forced the Waitangi Tribunal to release a chapter in advance of its final report. Many attendees at these hui were at a loss as to why so little time was given to absorb the details and implications of the bill. The Minister heard it for himself. By introducing the bill to Parliament the Crown has failed to ensure fair and valid consultation processes and that is why Labour is not supporting this bill to the select committee.Policy made on the hoof—with over 110 changes made to the bill since the exposure draft was first published in 2015 Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill represents policy made on the fly. A key issue is whether reforms can be effective when the bill has been subjected to such ongoing unplanned changes. Creating policy in legislative settings off the cuff is high risk and it is concerning that it took a tribunal hearing to prompt further revisions to the bill from the Minister’s officials. The reforms now present as legislation being written on the go without a clear analysis of impacts. The lack of empirical research on the existing Act and rolling off-the-cuff policy changes to the bill mean that there is a lack of rationale for the reforms and no way of ensuring legislative solutions are fit for purpose. This is why Labour is not supporting the bill.In respect of parts of the bill I mentioned the role of the Māori Land Court. Because there has been no extensive research on the existing Act it is impossible to say whether the removal of the Māori Land Court’s protective role will help good governance of land. In my view the proposed changes to the role of the court are high risk. In the bill engaged owners will be able to represent the interests of all owners for certain decisions rather than the Māori Land Court making such determinations. Originally this proposed shift in decision-making authority was linked with a compulsory shift in governance to new rangatōpū structures which would have set governance plans. As the new rangatōpū governance structures are now optional—one of the many off-the-cuff changes made to the bill—there is no longer a quality safeguard in place. This means that if related parties—the engaged owners—are making decisions on behalf of others they will be doing so with no set framework or quality standard of governance. In my view an impartial court judgment therefore offers safer decision-making processes.I move to the Māori Land Service. It is unfortunate that Māori landowners have not been given sufficient information on how this service will run where it will be based and more importantly what its role will actually be. It is not enough to say this work is in progress given the expectation that succession and land development services will be provided by this yet-to-be-established service.In terms of what the bill does not cover at the 2015 hui and the hui held in February this year Māori landowners asked specifically that it cover access to landlocked land paper roads land acquired under the Public Works Act successions and rating. This bill does not deal with these issues in any comprehensive way. Labour supports the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal and we respectfully ask the Government to immediately replace the retention principle including the protection mechanism provided by the Māori Land Court.