Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Just as the Minister responsible for RMA Reform is considering his answers let me take the committee back. I've now written an amendment to my amendment that the Minister was considering whether or not to support. Because it's not on the Table yet I will just take the committee through it.My amendment to Part 2—new clause 5A—if amended would read: Subject to section 5 a committee of the House of Representatives must initiate an inquiry within 90 days of the Act coming into force and report to the House of Representatives within 12 weeks on those parts of the Natural and Built Environment Act 2023 and the Spatial Planning Act 2023 that should be reinstated or given effect in policy." This amendment now lengthens out the time frames available to the Minister not only to refer it to the committee but also for that committee to report back. It would fold in both of those two pieces of legislation into the committee's inquiry; however that wouldn't prohibit or exclude the Minister from directing the committee to focus on the Spatial Planning Act if that was the Act that it was deemed there was more cross-partisan interest in improving and putting back in some form on to the statute book. I won't use all of my time discussing that amendment because there are a number of other amendments—six actually—that I haven't spoken to yet.Let me deal with the fourth; it's a replacement of clause 6 with an amendment that would essentially hold off on the consequential amendments in Part 2 to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 and Taumata Arowai the Water Services Regulator Act 2020. The reason for holding off on those and it's only suggested in this clause that it would be a nine-month hold-off is that for Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to be amended—that's on page 67 of my copy of the amendment bill—it requires a number of amendments to how things like subdivision consents would be considered. The issue that I'm raising here for the committee's consideration is that with a nine-month period to consider how the Act that is being repealed—the Natural and Build Environment hierarchy of how concepts in Te Ao Māori should be taken into account—when in Te Ture Whenua Maori Act you're giving effect to the powers of communal owners and going back to the 1991 provisions should be taken into account because they're not the same; they create a different kind of hierarchy.In the 1991 Act we have a hierarchy where kaitiakitanga is meant to be given effect in those decisions. In the new Natural and Built Environment Act we have a new way of giving effect to those values that are important to Te Ao Māori with concepts like Te Mana o te Wai. Now whatever you think about those considerations on any side of the House they are different but we're requiring an immediate whiplash in decisions that are made under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to go back to the 1991 system that have been being made under the new provisions—particularly things like subdivision consents and the powers under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act for communal Māori land owners to move their land from general freehold land to reserves or what are called whenua tōpū; these trust ownership models that own what was freehold land now in a trust environment where they do not pay rates and they are held in reserve for the good of not only the owners but also of the wider public.That's a move that you can see in other kinds of corporate law as going from privately held assets to publicly held ones which is like a move to a charity. When you give consideration to that kind of decision which is given power by Te Ture Whenua Maori Act you have a situation where people are doing something which is generally for the public good and we allow them those powers that are different from any other situation where say directors of a company move to a charitable context because we think that there is good for the public but there is also good for kaitiakitanga and for those values. But the values are different here. The new legislation proposes a different sort of values system that the decision makers which may be the Māori Land Court or it may be those owners who hold it in trust for the good of their descendants should take into account.So those decisions will be different. We need some time to work through how those decisions are different and I want the Minister to consider giving nine months to be able to consider how the hierarchy is different given that a number of these decisions will be in train within the Māori Land Court setting and within trust boardrooms around the country right now. Giving it more time will allow us to make sure that those decisions are done in a way which gives effect to the law as it is proposed by the Minister."