Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Committee stage debate of the Judicature Modernisation Bill. I would like to congratulate the Minister of Justice and the select committee because this is probably the biggest bill that I have ever seen come through the House. Although I am now on the Justice and Electoral Committee I have played no part in coming to this point in the process but I want to acknowledge those who have been here throughout this piece of legislation. My contribution really at this point in the proceedings is to talk about my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 202. I am not quite sure whether or not it fits but hopefully we will be able to figure out where it is best in terms of inclusion in this piece of legislation. I was motivated to write this SOP because the Judicature Modernisation Bill is about—and I will go to the purposes set out in clause 3(a)—consolidating in a single statute the provisions of the Judicature Act 1908 and the Supreme Court Act 2003; …" and under clause 3(b)(iii) it is about "judicial and other officers including their—(A) selection; and (B) appointment and conditions; …". So I really want to focus on that particularly in terms of the Māori Land Court because currently Māori Land Court judges are appointed under section 7 of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993.The Governor-General by warrant appoints "fit and proper persons". No reference in that piece of legislation is made as to who advises the Governor-General on the appointment. So from our perspective as a Labour Party the "fit and proper person"—actually that is fundamental to what my SOP is trying to address because we believe that the person who can determine who is a fit and proper person to be a Māori Land Court judge is actually the Minister for Māori Development. I have included that in my SOP—and I will read it out: "To apply the generic provisions of appointment of Judges set out in this Bill would result in a failure to recognise the distinctive nature of the relationship between Māori land Māori land owners Māori Land Court and the Minister for Māori Development." So essentially we are trying to preserve in statute a convention that has been operating. We all know that convention is overridden by statute so this seemed an opportune time to deal with this particular issue. I think the other point I wanted to make is that yes I realise that "advises" is hugely specific because essentially what it does say is that the Minister for Māori Development will select the Māori Land Court judges. I was also motivated to bring this Supplementary Order Paper to the House because I think there have been concerns from some of the submitters and some Māori Land Court judges and I have had some feedback from one of the Māori Land Court judges. I was trying to figure out whether this SOP fits in this part of the legislation because the heading of Part 2 is "District Court" Subpart 2 is about judges and then clause 192 is about the appointment of judges. So there seems to be a need for clarity about whether this is the appropriate place in this bill for the SOP to fit. It all then stems from whether or not Māori Land Court judges hold District Court warrants so I went on to the Ministry of Justice website. It is interesting. Under the title "Courts" it has got "Jury Service" "Going to court" "Civil" "Criminal". Then it talks about all the different branches I thought of District Court warrants which are Youth Court Family Court coroner's court Employment Court Environment Court—and included in these is the Māori Land Court. So there does need to be a determination from the officials—and if I am wrong I am wrong. What I have thought is that there is another part in this legislation which is clause 568. Clause 568 references the amendment to Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993. So I am looking at another SOP then that will amend this particular part of the clause. I have not quite figured out where we are going to put it but the convention that we want to put into statute in my SOP will now fit into here. I want to thank the Minister in the chair the Hon Amy Adams actually for taking the time to converse with me this morning and to highlight that we have possibly got things wrong—yeah after netball training—because if that is the case then I will withdraw the SOP that is on the Table and I will put to the House another SOP. I am really happy to do that but what I hope is that behind my intentions people will see that what I am trying to do is actually about the mana of the role of the Minister for Māori Development and the mana of the role of our Māori Land Court judges. I did ring—well Nanaia Mahuta did actually on my behalf—Judge Caren Fox this morning to ask about her warrant but her particular warrant is for the Māori Land Court and the Environment Court. Having a convention written in statute—given the opportunity that this bill presents because we are modernising the Judicature Modernisation Bill to put into statute a convention that seems to be long-running and everybody is committed to—I just do not understand why there could possibly be any problem with it. I would also like to thank my colleagues from across the Chamber because—I did this very quickly—I talked to Denis O'Rourke in the Chamber last night and I know New Zealand First is supporting my Supplementary Order Paper. I also emailed it to David Clendon and I want to thank him because he indicated that the Greens are going to support my Supplementary Order Paper. At the end of the day I think that we all agree that that principle of the Minister for Māori Development appointing the Māori Land Court judges is incredibly important. So if there is an opportunity for that convention to now be part of statute so that everybody knows and it is transparent then I actually think that is a positive development. I just want to say that this is no slight upon anybody. I know that the generic aspects of this piece of legislation—again I kind of intimated that the Attorney-General by default actually has a lot of power in this process because they will be determining whom they advise that the Governor-General then gives a warrant to serve our country and our courts. It is no disrespect so I hope that it is not taken in that vein but what I wanted to do is to just consolidate as I said before the mana of the Minister for Māori Development the mana of our Māori Land Court judges the importance of our whenua and the mana of our whenua and how it is administered. That was the intention behind my Supplementary Order Paper. As I said if I have to withdraw what is currently on the Table and come back to the Committee with an amended Supplementary Order Paper then I will do so. So the Minister might like to provide that clarity to the Committee and then we can all move on with some I guess definitive direction about how we can address this particular issue. Kia ora tātou."