Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): Oh Madam Chair thank you very much. This is a very important clause and the reason for that is it seems to me listening to the Hon Dr Nick Smith it goes to the heart of what this bill is about but more than that the heart of the double-speak from the Government on this bill.I've been shocked actually when you go through the detail of this bill to hear that double-talk. We've got Nanaia Mahuta in the contribution she made that I thought was fascinating. You know her conversation the whole way through has been very soothing to the New Zealand public. It's: This is about consistency. Look we are just making this law consistent across the provisions. There's nothing special here. We're not really trying to do anything much on the Māori wards. It's all about consistency." That's what she's been saying when in fact the opposite is true. The precise opposite of what she is saying is true. There is the ability for a binding referendum on literally anything the most trivial things that happen in local government and not all of these things I'll mention are trivial. I was just thinking there—you know dog collar laws—dog collar laws. They can have a binding referendum on that. The Tauranga City Council the Napier City Council the Wairoa District Council they could decide tomorrow to have a binding referendum of the people of their district on dog collars on plastic bottles rubbish on the colour of the cycle lanes that they're putting in place all around Tauranga on all of those things but there is one thing that is privileged. There is one thing that is privileged and that is Māori wards. There is now no ability despite everything else being able to be by a binding referendum to have a binding referendum on Māori wards. I thought what Nanaia Mahuta said was quite sinister actually because what she got up and said was: "Well yeah but come on Nick. You're just"—I was going to say what she said but let's say "you're whistling in the wind" is I think paraphrasing what she said—you're whistling in the wind because actually what the councils can do is they can have non-binding polls on this issue. Well that's either a very silly statement by the Minister or it's an incredibly cynical one—an incredibly cynical one—because here's what happens.If Auckland City has a poll on this and 93 percent of ratepayers say they do not want Māori wards there is nothing lawfully that that council can do about it. Because this law again in another clause that's relevant to this stitches it up screws the scrum—a phrase I think a former Chair said we weren't allowed to put in a heading to this bill despite the fact that that's exactly what it does—so that you can only go one way. You can go in with a Māori ward but you can never get out. What were the "Hotel California" words? "You can check in any time you like but you can never leave." That's what this bill does. It allows for binding for everything else. It privileges only one thing Māori wards and it also does the other thing as I say which is that you can go in but you can't get out. There is no legal basis to move away from Māori wards. So as I say Nanaia Mahuta is either being very silly or she's being very cynical when she speaks of this clause and she says that the answer to it is that "Well you can have a non-binding poll." It will make no difference to anything. You'll have no legal ability to do anything about it. That's what you do.You know I think it was Rob Muldoon who said: "A cock-up or conspiracy? Go with cock-up nine times out of 10." I hate to say it—I heard the Hon Dr Nick Smith say it before; he thought it was the latter. I think unfortunately conspiracy's not the word for it but there's a cynical game being played here by the New Zealand Labour Party when it comes to this. This isn't about choice this isn't about consistency. Actually what they are doing through this bill—I was going to say "soft" but it's actually a relatively firm presumption for Māori wards where what happens is there's more and more pressure for Māori wards. Actually I would go so far as to say it's a near quasi compulsory because I tell you what. That's what's going to happen—that's what's going to happen. We saw it with the Mental Health Foundation the other day. Nanaia Mahuta is going to go around and if Tauranga City Council wants the funding the mayor has to play nicely.We know what "play nicely" means. It means Māori wards. So there's a Nineteen Eighty-Four aspect to this I think a double-speak from Nanaia Mahuta soothing words on one side when the reality of the bill does precisely the opposite to what she's saying. It's a bit like Henry Ford. You can have any colour as long as it's black. What this bill does and what this clause means in practice on the ground if it is passed is a situation where you can only have Māori wards. There is no ability through a binding referenda or any other legal mechanism to do otherwise. That's the not so secret agenda here.So I ask the Minister in the chair and I appreciate Minister Mahuta has had a good innings in the chair—I ask the Minister in the chair: is that the real game here? Can she confirm that the only thing we've got here is a non-binding referendum? That's the only situation where it will be non-binding in local government. Everything else it can be binding. And more than that actually it's a situation where through a combination of clauses including this one the practical ramification is you can only go one way. You can check in any time you want but you can never leave. Is that what they are intending to do? Because it certainly seems—in fact it's certainly clear to me that that is actually what the bill does through this combination of provisions. You know it's either silly or cynical to say otherwise from Nanaia Mahuta. I say with some reluctance that I don't think she's silly. I think actually what she said in this House on this bill her assurances just before in the chair on this bill have a touch of Nineteen Eighty-Four to them their double-speak. She's trying to say one thing in code to parts of our Māori community and another thing to general New Zealanders when the real effect of this provision on referendums when it's combined with other clauses in this bill is a not so secret agenda which effectively gets us to compulsory Māori wards all over New Zealand."