McClay Todd: Maori Trustee Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
McClay Todd: Maori Trustee Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:3033] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 As I rise to speak on the Maori Trustee Amendment Bill I would like to recognise and pay tribute to Hekia Parata and her mother who very sadly has passed away. Hekia of course is my bench mate in Parliament. I do know that Hekia’s mother was extremely proud of her and if her mother was anything like Hekia she would have been a very strong and capable woman. This is a great loss not only to her family but to all of us. 
In rising to speak on this bill I give a word of caution to my very good friend Paul Quinn who spoke with great eloquence earlier in this debate. I want to caution you about the savaging you keep on giving the previous Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Parekura Horomia on these issues. I think you should leave the previous Minister of Maori Affairs alone. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Would you please keep the Chair out of the discussion. “You” refers to the Chair. 
TODD McCLAY 
: My apologies Mr Assistant Speaker. I think when Paul is speaking in this House it would be best for him not to savage the previous Minister of Maori Affairs in such a way. The previous Minister is committed to this bill and he speaks with great support for the Maori people. It strikes me when listening to him that he has an open mind. Perhaps he has an open mind when it comes to issues about Maori people in New Zealand. In fact his mind is so open on this issue that Paul suggested to me he could feel the draught from here. 
I commend the current Minister of Maori Affairs Pita Sharples for the fast pace and big progress he has made in delivering this bill before the House. He is a Minister who is all about delivery. I liken him using a rugby analogy to a winger who has a bill under his arm and is charging down the sideline when the members of the previous Government are still hanging around the halfway line arguing with the referee and complaining amongst themselves as to why someone else has the ball—in this case the bill—and is running off to score a try. 
Tau Henare another former Minister of Maori Affairs spoke earlier. Indeed it is my impression having observed this bill in other discussions in Parliament over the last 6 months that the new Minister of Maori Affairs Pita Sharples is probably even better as a Minister than Tau Henare was when he was the Minister of Maori Affairs. I know that members opposite will find this hard to believe but he has been doing a very good job. Tau Henare was an excellent Minister none the less. 
In coming to the bill directly I say it is very important legislation. I had the opportunity to speak on this bill in the Committee stage. When I went back to my office and was able to look at my speech and read it I realised that I might have made an error during my discussion in the Committee stage. I referred to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and I think I might have questioned whether she was a good person. I have had a chance to reflect on that very clearly and I know that she supports this bill. I want to say how much I enjoyed the discussions I had with her during the campaign last year in Matamata and upon reflection I can say she is not only an honourable person but a very good person. I want to set the record straight on that. Of course at the time it was not clear whether she was supporting the bill but her smile at me now suggests that she will be doing so and therefore I set the record straight. 
What does this bill do? We have heard other speakers talk about that at great length but I repeat that it establishes the Maori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation. Finally after so long all the fighting the quibbling and the discussions that went on under the last Government in relation to the organisation around the Maori Trustee will be set aside. The good news for the Maori Trustee is that not only will it be easier for the Maori Trustee to do his or her work but the Maori Trustee will be able to focus on the very important job of going out there and finding the people for whom he or she is entrusted with funds and with land and of trying to deliver some of the funds back to those people. 
The bill also looks at the Minister’s authority when appointing a trustee and also—this is important—when the Minister decides to take away the appointment of a trustee. I note—and in the debate others have spoken of this—that the Minister must observe the rules of natural justice. When one considers the rules of natural justice I suggest one realises that when the previous Government put that provision in place—before it was unable to deliver this bill to Parliament and pass it into law—it did not have the current Minister in mind. He is a man whom I do not think we need to remind about natural justice. But perhaps in the future one day 15 years from now this issue will come up. Let us suppose that one of the members opposite becomes the Minister of Maori Affairs again. It might possibly be the Hon Parekura Horomia if he is still here as the Labour Party rejuvenates itself. Well on looking at this bill I see that the reference to the Minister observing the rules of natural justice is important. It suggests that politics will be left out of that; politics will be set aside. That will be a good 15 years from now and observing the rules of natural justice would be a great thing. 
Paul Quinn 
: He will be Prime Minister. 
TODD McCLAY 
: Does the member think the Hon Parekura Horomia will be Prime Minister? He would be a very good Prime Minister. I think members on the Labour side of the House will have a discussion on that. If they gave Government MPs a vote on which of the members opposite should become a future Prime Minister I think that Parekura would get a lot of votes from members on this side of the House. 
I go on to say that the bill also replaces the term “interest” with that of “distributable income” which is very important because the issue is not just about interest. Funds come from a number of places and I have seen a number of very wide descriptions. The sad news I suppose is that if we had left the word “interest” in the bill—so that when the bill is adopted it became part of the law—today under the new Government the return from that interest would be about 2.5 percent per year. That would concern a lot of people who have money invested as opposed to those who are borrowing and who would like that because under the previous Government the interest rate was probably about 10 percent. The return from interest would have been much greater then of course than it is now and many people for whom interest is paid on the funds held by the trustee are not benefiting from those funds at all. There is a very long list of people out there who are yet to be found and who might benefit from the funds held there. There is a structured income from the investment of the money in the common fund and that forms part of the common fund rather than being transferred to the existing general purpose fund. That is important became it means that the money will be held there in trust and cannot be diverted and used for other things. 
I think I mentioned the word “diversion” and I have a $35 million question: what did the previous Government want to do with the $35 million that was set up there under the Maori Trustee for it to use? As I searched through documents earlier I came across a number of statements from extremely honourable members of this House—members who are doing a great job not only on behalf of the Maori community but on behalf of all of New Zealand and all New Zealanders—that said a Labour Government proposal to take $35 million from the Maori Trustee to build a Maori economic development agency was just another way for Labour MPs to write cheques to buy back the Maori vote. That was one statement. Who said that? It was a man who has spoken very ably in this House and who knows a lot about these very important issues: my good friend Tau Henare. Mr Henare went on to say that proposal was a blatant bid by the Labour Party to try to get Maori back on board and that Labour was stealing Maori money to do it. Mr Henare said that was unfair and desperate. Well I ask members opposite how unfair and desperate that is. 
I have only a few moments left and as this is an important bill I want to tell members a little about the research we were able to do before coming to the House today. I was able to get a list of people in my area of New Zealand the Bay of Plenty and particularly in the Rotorua electorate or Waiariki area. I have the number of people who are on the list of those who are owed money. I call on the new trustee when this bill becomes law to redouble his efforts and do everything possible to go out and try to find these people—not just to put out messages in a newspaper or on the Internet site but to actually look for an effective way to find them. There are 28 pages of names of people—1400 people—in the Waiariki area who are owed money and very large substantial amounts of money and at the end of this debate I think it is important that we look at helping the Maori Trustee. I support this bill and in a moment I will seek leave to table those names so that the House has the very best opportunity it can have to help the trustee in his work. 
The Minister has done a great piece of work; I commend him for it. I am very happy to stand up and to support this bill in its third reading. This will be a celebration. From 2007 to 2008 there was a change of Government and a Minister running down the sidelines with a bill. Today he will score a try and that will be good for the Maori Trustee and for Maori people in New Zealand. Thank you. 
I seek leave to table the document in front of me which is a list of unclaimed moneys held by the Maori Trustee for the Waiariki area. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Leave is sought for the tabling of the document. Is there any objection? There is objection.