Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou Ngāti Whakauē Wāhiao Tūhourangi o Whakarewarewa ngā iwi ngā hapū katoa i tēnei rā. Nau mai haere mai whakatau mai. Ā kia ora koutou.[Greetings greetings to you Ngāti Whakauē Wāhiao Tūhourangi o Whakarewarewa the iwi and all the hapū on this day. Welcome welcome welcome. Greetings to all.]It is with pleasure that I stand to speak on this the first reading of the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute Vesting Bill particularly following up a fantastic hui that I had—including with David Tapsell—in October to help me understand the whakapapa of how this legislation has come into this House and the decades and decades of toil and hard work that has been mentioned already by various colleagues across the House acknowledging that hard work. By the time we get things in this House by the time we get the piece of paper here in this House it represents years of toil tears blood and sweat and that cannot be undermined and underestimated in any way especially when it relates to our taonga our intellectual property as well which this Te Puia institute is also going to protect and develop—our physical taonga and also our mātauranga our intellectual property—and make sure that we are passing it on to future generations. You know Rotorua in particular has long known that this is a point of difference for Aotearoa on the world stage and always has been.It's quite funny because I had to sort of scratch my head a little bit after I had that hui with David and I was sort of like: What it hasn't been given back yet?" So really we're just doing the right thing. We're just catching up to what should have been already the case.I understand that this won't interrupt the operations. This will enhance the operations of preserving and promoting our traditional taonga and I understand that the partnership for Te Puia the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute is between Wāhiao Tūhourangi o Whakarewarewa the hapū Ngāti Hurungaterangi Ngāti Taeotu and Ngāti Kahu and then the Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust for Ngāti Whakauē.I really want to see how this goes. I'm really pleased and encouraged that we are taking this step. I absolutely acknowledge the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell. I realise that he not only signed the vesting agreement in I think it was 2017 but that he was also a key mover particularly in the political House of making sure that we brought this to bear in here and we continue this work—change of Government but we continue this work and that's right.So we are gifting back we are transferring the ownership of Te Puia from Crown to iwi which is absolutely the right thing. I understand that the whenua involved in the operation was returned to iwi in 2009 and that that is allowed to happen but I think you know the Green Party is quite keen to mention that this also does not harm any future or outstanding Treaty settlements either. So this can continue through. It stands on its own and it is able to continue through without negatively impacting on ongoing and outstanding Treaty settlements.I had a look at the—I think it was a postal ballot. I understand there was high high acceptance across the different iwi-hapū bodies and I really celebrate that notwithstanding that of course we should always allow for dissenting voices to be able to have their say and their expression and raise matters of concern. I look forward to seeing how this operation will continue and hope that all players can come to an understanding of moving forward on this but in general when I had a look it seems that this gained quite a high level of both participation which in our Māori voting community is not a standard thing actually—it's quite rare for there to be high participation in any voting process for Māori communities. So I was quite impressed that it had quite high participation and then was getting support for this vesting process so well done. Congratulations for that and I know that that doesn't undermine or rule out any further outstanding issues that people may still wish to kōrero about. So well done on that. This is the first reading. I am honoured to be the deputy chair on the Māori Affairs Committee so I am really looking forward to the submissions. That's the meaty stuff and the storytelling that I am looking forward to—hearing directly from whānau and from all of the members of the partnership in this vesting process. I think I already—yeah I did. I already talked about the high level of support. Lastly I just went through and I really loved that this bill actually outlines—first of all it stipulates New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute taonga as being inalienable so it stipulates that. Then I'm interested to dig into the background behind that which is that after the vesting of the assets and liabilities of Te Puia none of the taonga may be disposed of and a purported disposal of taonga is void and of no effect. I think what I really was picking up on—because then it goes through to outline the sorts of activities around protecting and developing taonga and cultural knowledge encouraging and fostering our arts our carving our weaving and our whakairo. I was really interested in what Te Puia can mean. Part of our transformation to also be a community and sustainable economy is actually our intellectual prowess and our knowledge and our generations to come and so this is really absolutely an area as an overall economy we should be looking to concentrate on. So I'm really happy and I'm really happy to see you all here in the gallery. I'm looking forward to learning more directly from iwi and hapū members about what this will mean for the future. I'm looking forward to seeing if it can be improved in any way. I'm looking forward to seeing how we can make this even better than what it already is through the select committee process. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."