Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak to this bill this evening and I too want to congratulate Joseph Mooney who has a done a lot of work around this bill shaping it progressing it though caucus preparing it and bringing it to the House here tonight and indeed having it drawn. I recall a very senior person in this House making the point of what a privilege it is to have a bill drawn from the ballot box and that over the many decades that he had been here he hadn't actually had a bill drawn. I also recall the comment behind my Maybe you should have put one in the ballot box." But that's a different story. Joseph has brought his legal background to understand the detail to this bill and that's clearly shown through to us here in caucus and despite the comments and the commentary that I've heard tonight it's not clear to us and it's certainly not clear to me that the issues that te ture whenua was looking to address 14 years ago are at all well addressed here today. I want to look back and just reflect on some of the background that brought us here. Indeed if we look at some of the commentary that Labour was making back in 2018 they were commenting and suggesting that they would do exactly these sort of reforms that we have here in Joseph's bill here tonight. In 2008 Labour policy was "to help Māori realise the economic potential of Māori land by reviewing Te Ture Whenua Maori Act". Three years later in 2011 the same Labour Party said "The most effective way to ensure the wellbeing of Māori is to grow the position of Māori in the economy. Māori are no longer passive bystanders in the New Zealand economy; they are active participants. The challenge for Labour is to grow this figure to grow the Māori economy for the benefit of all Māori". Then Labour proposed in 2011 that they would review ture whenua land legislation to simplify the development options for multiply-owned land. So you know Labour had been proposing for many years to do exactly what this bill is doing here and the fact that it's not in their name really shouldn't be relevant if there's good work that might come from this. I would suggest there is. When the Hon Chris Finlayson took this over the commentary's been made that maybe—and maybe I didn't hear correctly—there hasn't been enough dialogue with Māori and then that Te Ao Māori were unhappy with the outcomes 2016 to 2017. I would make the point that when Chris was Associate Minister to Pita Sharples he had discussions with very senior people in Māoridom—Toko Kapia from Ngāti Apa Matanuku Mahuika from Ngāti Porou Dion Tuuta from Ngāti Mutunga and Dame Patsy Reddy were all involved with an exposure draft that was quite rare to actually put out and had widespread discussion. I think there are several parts of this bill that particularly interest me that I see no redress and answer to today. The section in Part 3 looking at kaiwhakamarumaru which is for disabled people to have a say in the management of land and Māori affairs—this bill replaces the jurisdiction of the Māori Land Court to establish a kaitiaki trust for owners under a disability with a new jurisdiction to appoint kaiwhakamarmaru to act as managers for owners needing protection; being owners under 18 years of age or owners who in the opinion of the court partly lack the legal capacity or competence to manage their own affairs. This seems like a good thing and to me it seems like it's still an area of weakness. The other area I'd point to is a tidying up of the part of the old Act that talks about the disposal of Māori land which says that freehold Māori land can be disposed to a "preferred class of alienees" and this is an odd sort of aggregation of terms. Children descendants of owners; that makes sense. Whanaunga of an owner; that makes sense as well. There's about eight items here. The one I'm looking at is descendants of any former owner. What it misses here is former owners. So what this bill does in clause 109 page 88 in Part 4 is specifically address that. Just by way of example of a hole that needs fixing that clearly Labour hasn't fixed this bill would fix here tonight on its progress through select committee—and the redress here is in clause 109(1)(iv): "any former owners of the land and descendants of any former owners of the land including the land when it formed any part of a former parcel;". There's a solution right there to a problem we have here today. This bill addresses many many problems actually. I recall the discussion with Marama Fox actually around a whāngai and she was very adamant very strong actually brought very good ideas to the table—I happened to be in the Māori Affairs Committee that day—and that is also addressed by this bill. It still stands out there hanging to my mind under succession so I think this bill does address a lot of existing issues in Māoridom and it's a bill that the National Party will be supporting. Thank you."