Bridges Simon; Salesa JennyLOCAL GOVERNMENT (RATING OF WHENUA MĀORI) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed.Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): You know there are some bills that come before this House where 10 minutes just isn't enough time to talk about all of the issues and the things that need to be put on the table in relation to the law and here is one of those bills where I regret that I don't have 20 minutes to really work through all of the things that are wrong with this bill. I will be moving—so that the Labour Party can think about this before—at the end of the speech for an extension of time of another 10 minutes and so that is for them to decide. There's two basic points in relation to the specifics of this bill that I want to make. But there is also a broader point overall as it pertains to this bill that I want make. The first point I want to make is in relation to—as Christopher Luxon has described it—the core. If there is any substance in this bill and it's not a huge amount and we'll come to that but to the extent that there is substance in this bill the core of it around the non-rateable Māori land and the rates remissions in relation to Māori land my point there is what the Government has done is hugely problematic. It is hugely problematic. It's a bit like so much law we see in this Parliament from the Labour Party where as Chris Luxon again has pointed out they just haven't thought it through. They've got the visage the frontage but there is nothing behind it. The thought the grunt the intellectual rigour is not there. I want to say two things. At one level—you know they can't both be right but I'd suggest actually they quite possibly are here. On the one hand what we've got is a law in relation to non-rateable Māori land and rates remissions that isn't needed. It's quite simply not needed. I think that's the Lawrence Yule point that Chris—you can do it today. The Auckland Council is doing these things. We could argue about whether or not they should and I'll come to that but it is a slogan here in a law that already any council in New Zealand today anywhere can do. So you just wonder why they would put this law in place when it's window dressing. As Chris Luxon was saying to me earlier today about the entire Government it's the Disney frontage and you walk through it and there's nothing behind it. Minnie Mouse isn't even there. I say Minnie Mouse is gone. She's on a cigarette break. But there is a second—Paul Eagle: Plenty of other mickey mouses on the other side.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well don't talk about mickey" or "mouse" OK? But there is a second point that's problematic and it's quite simply this. If there was any reality to this bill if there is actually something there—which I suspect is what the Labour Party says there has to be. I mean I suspect they're not going to get up and say—well they haven't actually said anything really. But they're not going to get up and say "Well this bill's got nothing to it." That would be shameful. They're going to say "No no there's a real reason to it." To the extent there is I say—and before they get the dog-whistling comments I'm not dog-whistling. That's not my game here. There is the appearance of different treatment for Māori land owners than for the rest of the landowners where the situation otherwise might be basically identical right. It might be the same situation where they've got land locked up in multiple owners etc. etc. The various issues that we have in Māori land might happen in relation to other Pākehā farmers and the like. So why is it that we would just do it for one side and not the other? Maybe that's something just—you know call me radical. Call me Michael Bassett. Maybe that's something that we kind of should be thinking about. I suspect the other side just isn't. It's not just Māori land owners who have unproductive land who own land collectively or who may benefit through a series of specific facts from rates remission. I'd make this point as well—or I'll stay with just this first point—and that is this: the Government is piling on other costs on landowners at the moment whether it's through the environmental stuff of David Parker or whether it's through—Christopher Luxon: National policy statements. Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —policy statements up the wazoo. All of that stuff is adding cost on. Māori land owners are getting a break; other New Zealanders are not. So this bill does things that aren't really necessary. To the extent it does something real I'd say it's highly problematic when you get into the detail of it. But secondly—it's my second point—it doesn't do the hard things the real reform that Māori actually need. It's a poor excuse I say to Meka Whaitiri to the people in her electorate who need real change actually—who need real reform in this area. And do you know what the tragedy really is? The reform is there; they just need to pick it up and pass it. It's not difficult. It got a good way through in a couple of parliaments ago. I can tell you. I can tell you what happened there. I was the Leader of the House in not the last Parliament but before that—Hon Member: 51.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —in 51 49; who's counting?—and I could see that Te Ture Whenua Māori land reform law should be passed. It would be an intergenerational game-changer for Māori in New Zealand and I'll say something—I'm not sure it's been put on the record before. I went to the Māori Party. In the end—it's not what they say; it's what I say—from the bullying of the Labour Party when I offered them urgency to pass that law that would have made a substantive difference they got scared out of it by the Labour Party Māori members of Parliament. In the end they weren't quite sure that they wanted to do it because they were getting all this gibe from the other side—at that stage this side of the House—and so it didn't pass even though it should have. What that bill would have done has been summed up very nicely by Chris Luxon. It would have allowed the utilisation of Māori land for wealth creation for horticulture for honey for houses—for all the things that New Zealand does so well. It would have allowed in Tauranga in the King Country in Northland—the areas where there's multiple landowners and we don't even know where some of them are if you're on some of these Māori trusts—the ability to free that up so that sensible governance and decisions could be made in relation to that land to create wealth for Māori in New Zealand. That's a real elephant or moa in the room and I want to say let's be straight talking about this. We have a situation in New Zealand today where the briefings to incoming Ministers for every department in the Government have "Treaty this" "Treaty that" on every page—they literally do. Ingrid Leary: I wonder why. Hon SIMON BRIDGES: But it's window dressing—well it's window dressing I say to the member over there. It's window dressing if you're not going to do the real things that make a difference. The poverty is getting worse. Inequality has got worse in the last year probably than it has in a couple of decades and I accept COVID's had a role. The rich have got richer; the poor have got poorer relatively speaking and that includes Māori. The statistics are getting worse and here's an area—probably one of the biggest single things we could do in relation to Māori and Māori land—and it's not being done. It's not being done. We had Te Arawhiti in in the Māori Affairs Committee and they talked a nice game. Ultimately all I could see was a department that is increasing its numbers by hundreds in terms of staff that is receiving on average well over a hundred grand a person a year for process for Treaty talk when one of the real things that could be done that would go a long way actually over generations to do something about the poor Māori statistics we see is here in this area. But not some silly little law that kind of does what's already being done and that's problematic in its way but it's very small. It's a slogan looking for some reality behind it. How about this Parliament actually pass te ture whenua Māori land law reform bill? That would be something that makes a real difference for Māori and—in my remaining three seconds—actually Gerry Brownlee has it in the ballot and could make that difference. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Mr Bridges. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Point of order Madam Speaker. I seek leave for an extension of time to have another 10 minutes in this debate. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That is denied."