Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Madam Chair. Interesting that the Minister didn't answer my colleague's question at all. When we come to this bill here today there's another part of it we need to look at as well and that is effectively the councils have full discretion over the number of Māori seats or having Māori seats in a council. But we don't have any indication of how many seats may be appropriate. We don't have any indication of how many voters in each of those seats may be appropriate. And that raises some really big natural justice issues around the value of every vote because the fundamental premise that we base our democracy on is that every vote is equal.The fact that there could be a council that determines it wants to have four Māori wards—because it may have a very big geographical distribution—and find that it only needs 5000 voters in each of those four Māori wards where it has eight general wards with 20000 voters in each of those general wards would then create a situation of immense power for those 5000 voters because they then become a third of that council for 20000 voters which is only the equivalent of one of the other eight wards that would be on the general scale. So we have no indication of how far this can go. It's not premised on the idea that there will be one vote one person and each seat will have the same number of votes in it. There's nowhere in the legislation that says that. There's nowhere in the councils that they're required to do that. So we're taking away the theory of each having an equal vote.Now I was very interested that we've got members of this Parliament here that represent a whole lot of ethnicities and my good friend over there from Hamilton West is an example and congratulations to him on being the first Indian elected as an electorate MP in New Zealand—just before Priya of course. But the nature of that is the changing face of New Zealand. In 100 years' time when we come back to this place it'll be completely different. Someone like my good friend will just be a leader from many years back. He will be represented by 20 or 30 or 40 electorate MPs in this House of Indian ethnicity. And that's the future of New Zealand. But we're saying that there's only going to be one part of our community that potentially has a special voting right.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Tangata whenua.Hon DAVID BENNETT: And the Māori Party will say tangata whenua that's their answer and fair enough that's their answer. But that's not what New Zealand is based on. New Zealand is based on the Treaty of Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi gives every person a vote because it takes away—Kieran McAnulty: They're laughing at you. The gallery is laughing at you.Hon DAVID BENNETT: No they're not laughing. The public are laughing at you because they understand that they all have one vote and each vote counts. And to take that away through this legislation and put that power in the councillors is effectively what we are doing here.Louisa Wall: That they voted for.Hon DAVID BENNETT: No but if the councillors actually went out there and promoted this as part of their campaigns that would be great but they don't. I can go to Hamilton and I can show you now none of those councillors—well some of the councillors may have but the mayors certainly don't go out there and promote that. And then they become mayors and it becomes a very important part of their process of what they want to see happen to their city. It is something that we do not see coming forward in the early parts of the voting process. We see it when people are in that position and whatever reason it is that those mayors and councillors then determine that it's such an important thing that they have to then promote is for them to explain.But the fundamental basis of this legislation is that we do not have any understanding of its ramifications and practicality. We don't understand how many seats could actually be involved and what the number of voters in each seat was and that will deride on the total democracy that we see in this country at the moment.