Davidson MaramaHon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence): Kia ora a te Māngai o te Whare. Kia ora tātou katoa. It has been my pleasure to use the last 15 minutes to get up to date on this bill that I've never seen before in my life. It's actually a pleasure to find out more about the Cawthron Institute Trust Board. We are talking about a hundred years of much loved work in the community if I'm to take the kōrero from the rest of the House as any indication and I acknowledge that a lot of the local and connected passion and connection to the work of the trust has been laid clearly on the floor in here. So what I will do is pick up on some of the points of difference and expertise that I can offer to this conversation. A really important one is especially where it concerns our kaitiaki duties for our taiao our living systems and for generations to come—a hundred years is several generations. That is the sort of long-term thinking that this bill is about and that we should all be about in our responsibilities. So just for the record I am stating that the Green Party is of course supporting this bill that it's a private bill and again we congratulate Rachel Boyack the Nelson member. The focus for me in my time will be the part of the bill that appoints a member of the trust board nominated by Te Tauihu iwi. To add to the significance of that iwi appointment I wanted to acknowledge the letter that all the members will have received and just quickly go through the support from the iwi that represent that part of the private bill. So I am really happy to see that Ngāti Tama Ngāti Rārua Ngāti Koata Trust Te Ātiawa Ngāti Toa Rangatira Ngāti Kuia Ngāti Apa ki Te Rā Tō and Rangitāne are all working together and collaborating and working with the Cawthron trust board on that part of the private bill; again reminding us all that it is as a statutory trustee of equal status to the others. Fantastic!I thought I'd pick up on what is on the Cawthron website in terms of what that private bill is picking up on. I was really pleased to see that the Cawthron Institute as New Zealand's largest independent science organisation is proud to support a strengthening relationship with iwi and the significant value of mātauranga Māori—indigenous knowledge experience and connection. This is leadership. This is exactly what Aotearoa can be a leader in around the world. For the past several hundred years we have seen an undermining and an ignorance of the value of indigenous knowledge—particularly when it comes to the work like that of the Cawthron Institute—which is all about protection and is a particular focus on research from agriculture to the oceans and picks up on the damage and the devastation of our living systems that has been happening over the many many generations and over the many many years. One example that I was thinking about if you'll allow in terms of identifying why that part of the private bill needs some considerable focus—I was thinking about the example of kauri dieback. We've had some fantastic researchers some based here at Victoria University of Wellington I believe over the years who have been doing their research in the traditional places in the labs and so on and so forth. It wasn't until they were interweaving their research and their experiments and looking for—I'm not going to use the word cure"—a way to better protect kauri—Simon Court: There's no cure.Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON:—and that's why I'm not using the word "cure"—but looking for a way to better understand what will enhance the resilience of kauri trees of these ancient ancient ancient ancestors of our forests. She spoke with so much pride to the Māori Affairs Committee several years ago when she talked about it wasn't until she had generations of knowledge from a particular kaumātua who was able through an oral whakapapa to identify particular species that acted as guardians and gateways to protect the tree the kauri from kauri dieback—that the devastation of that ecosystem and the interdependent relationship between what the kauri tree requires for that protection was only made visible to her because of the mātauranga Māori. And she was then able to conduct her experiments for resilience and protection and to narrow down the areas where she could focus. And we all know—well maybe some of us don't—that the amount of research when you don't have a foundation of knowledge that you then have to go through by trial and error can be years and years of difference. But with his whakapapa knowledge of the ecosystem of the kauri tree she was able to narrow her research right down. That is the sort of innovation that this trust is leading for all of us. That is the sort of innovation that the smart people know is necessary. Our world and the protection of it was never ever supposed to survive with just Western knowledge alone. Never ever is any species supposed to survive with the dominance of only one school of thought. And we can look at the ecosystem of a forest again to understand that. Any one species depends on the interconnected relationship between all of the other species. There is no one primacy. There is an interdependent relationship and any damage and devastation of one part of the ecosystem actually impacts on all the rest of the parts of that lifecycle. This is what this private bill is properly recognising and I hope it serves as an inspiration for all of us about what is possible when we not only honour the knowledge that we have all been denied that we will be bereft of but when we also uplift the whakapapa connection of mana whenua across all of our regions. That is an accountability that can speak that cannot be narrowed down in just words. That is generations and generations of accountability and duty as kaitiaki.I realise that others have been focusing on other parts of the bill. I wanted to be able to contribute what I have a particular privilege in knowing and I hope that I have added to the contribution particularly from a Green Party kaupapa perspective. Kia ora."