Coffey TamatiTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's my pleasure actually as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee to stand and to contribute to this the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill. As I do this I know that there are thousands of people out there watching and listening right now to the contributions being made in this House because this has been a long time coming. It's been 20 years in the making. It has been 20 years in the making and a whole lot of frustration because Māori representation on local council has been dismal. In fact because of the small provision which enables 5 percent of the local voting constituency to be able to overturn what's essentially as the Race Relations Commissioner said a racist piece of policy a discriminatory piece of policy actually because of that reason we have a lack of Māori being able to represent Māori at the decision-making table. Now I want to take a moment just to commend all of those councils out there that have wanted this. Back home in the Bay of Plenty I can remember two conversations that I had with two of our local mayors Mayor Tony Bonne from Whakatāne District Council and also Mayor Garry Webber from the Western Bay of Plenty District Council. Both of them looked me in the eye as both Pākehā men and they said to me We want this to happen. We absolutely want this to happen." The member for Tauranga is sitting over there having a good old chuckle but actually he wasn't in the debating chamber that day that the Māori wards were voted on by the councillors that were there. Nobody thought it was going to happen but a couple of people made some really powerful submissions and as a result that was a decision that the Tauranga City Council made. There are councils all around the country that want this. They don't want the hassle of having to go out and try and fabricate some other way to engage Māori in local government decision-making processes. They want this. Tony Bonne wanted this. Garry Webber wanted this. Tenby Powell when he was the mayor wanted this as well. We have a series of mayors who want this and today we are delivering that for them. I want to congratulate ActionStation and Toni Boynton and her crew who came to the steps of Parliament at the end of last year to present a petition on behalf of the people of New Zealand to remove this provision which is not democratic. It's actually racist in its element and that's why we're having this decision today. You see to be able to establish a general ward as a local council you're able to do that. To establish a Māori ward actually the game changes. Suddenly because it says "Māori ward" in there it goes straight to the ability for the local community 5 percent of them—that's not a huge lot. You can generally drum up 5 percent but 5 percent of the local population can overturn that decision and it's not good enough. It's not good enough and we're here today passionately saying from our side that we have a commitment to Te Tiriti. Actually that's something that I wonder if the other side actually have. They've made announcements recently about wanting to stand in the upcoming elections in the Māori wards—essentially the Māori seats are Māori wards in constituencies. They've made that comment over there and today they're standing there and they're telling people that this is wrong. So I'm looking back at them in the eye and I'm saying that this will happen and you will look back on this as being on the wrong side of history. Everybody in this House who opposes this will be on the wrong side of history.Let me talk about what the amendments will do. What we're looking to do is we're looking to honour our Treaty commitments by repealing the provisions in the Local Electoral Act 2001 that relate to polls on the establishment of Māori wards and Māori constituencies. Now for those people that don't understand I'll make the comment: Māori wards local council; Māori constituencies regional councils. Of the 24 councils around the country that have tried to implement Māori wards in the last 20 years three have been successful. One was the Bay of Plenty Regional Council but that was actually done through legislation through its own set of legislation. So if you look at it not a good hit rate right? Māori people trying to get their representation at local council not being able to get it because of this provision. So we stand here today saying that we are going to change things. To the people back home that are wondering how this sits with us Taupō District Council and Tauranga City Council resolved to establish Māori wards for the 2022 election. Ōpōtiki District Council resolved to hold a poll alongside the 2022 elections. Western Bay of Plenty District Council and Whakatāne District Council up to this point have been prohibited from making another resolution around Māori wards in 2020 because of a six-year binding poll in 2018 that failed. We're here today. We're changing things up because we believe in our Te Tiriti partnership. We believe that Crown-Māori relations between the Government between Māori out there need to be a whole lot better than it has been over the last 20 years. Our Māori people are crying out for representation. I'm really stoked that the previous speaker got up and talked about the Labour Party manifesto. It's a good one and actually I'm glad that he took the time over his holidays to really drill down into some of the finer points of our manifesto. What he missed though was the bit in there where we talked about Labour's commitment to Te Tiriti. He missed that little bit in there that talked about Labour wanting to be a better Treaty partner to Māori. Until he understands just what that means they will continue to be hypocrites to stand there on that side—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will stand withdraw and apologise.TĀMATI COFFEY: I withdraw and apologise. The other side will stand there and they will continue to tell New Zealand that this is a bad piece of legislation. This is what we need. If we're to mature as a country then legislation changes like this are exactly what we need.I'm part of a really passionate group of people on the Māori Affairs Committee that are going to be moving this through. We will be moving this through. It will be fast as well. Let there be no mistake about that. We do things urgently because they are urgent. That's why we use urgency and that's why we're going to be invoking it. But it will be a short submission time. So I say this to all of those people that are listening out there that are thinking about submitting into our committee: the window will be open for a very short period of time and I encourage people to come forward with their submissions and actually come before our committee. Put your case. Tell us how passionate about it you are whichever side you sit on. Let the people listen to your submission. Let the media listen to your submission. Let everybody that's sitting around that committee table analyse why you're so passionate one way or the other. But I say it will be a very short time frame because this is long overdue. It's long overdue and we need change. We need support from the community to be able to come forward during this urgency during this bill as it moves through over the next week and actually submit to it. It's a good piece of legislation. It's long overdue and it's time we moved quickly. Kia ora."