Mark RonRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Well it has been quite interesting sitting and listening to the debate thus far. I probably will start by saying that this is one of those issues where either you fundamentally believe in the philosophy that has been espoused by some of the speakers in favour of this bill or you fundamentally do not. It has been quite interesting to hear people make statements such as I am disappointed that a Māori should give such a speech." noting that the speech is against the bill and against that speaker's personal view. It sort of presupposes that all Māori think alike. It presupposes that every Māori person or every New Zealander of mixed ethnicity who has a trace line of DNA to Māori must and should think like every other Māori. It sort of presupposes that we would all vote for the Māori Party because naturally we are Māori. Once again this bill actually raises this debate which I know causes some emotions to fly and it causes some people who support this notion to get very angry with people who do not like me and New Zealand First. There are those of us in Māoridom who subscribe to a view that we attain and achieve on merit. We either succeed or we do not on our own abilities. Jerry Mateparae did not become the Governor-General of New Zealand or the Chief of Defence Force or the Chief of Army or an SAS officer simply because he was Māori. There were no specially reserved places at Officer cadet school for Māori or within the ranks of his battalion. People join the army put on one uniform become one people—one unit—and get on with the job and they get promoted or they do not based on their performance based on their merit based on their qualifications and based by the way on their leadership skills. The same exists from our perspective in the realm of politics. It is interesting. We have had this debate going backwards and forwards over a number of years and the one thing we can say for sure is that regardless of which side of the fence that we are arguing here the number of people with Māori ethnicity in Parliament has grown to the level where I think probably a third of this House can now claim Māori descendancy. I understand the Hon Simon Bridges does and Paula Bennett does as well. It is somewhat offensive to me and to other people like Georgina Beyer to be told that the only way that we could be elected as the Mayor of Carterton—and let us be clear about this. Carterton is a conservative rural district. If there are going to be allegations and accusations of racism it might well be in those areas of rural New Zealand like Carterton where views are quite conservative and yet—and yet—Carterton elected Georgina Beyer who was not only Māori but actually a transsexual as well. Carterton elected another couple of mayors after Georgina and then when I stood for it I did not run on a banner that "I am from Hurunui o Rangi and I am Ngāti Kahungunu. Therefore I have the mana of the whenua and therefore I have a right to have a reserved seat and to be the Mayor." I stood on the name of Ron Mark and people judged me on my merits and elected me. It is interesting to note that I sat in this House when Mita Ririnui put through his member's bill to reserve seats in Rotorua. Do you know what the outcome of that was? The level of Māori representation in the Bay of Plenty dropped because people said: "Well the Māoris have got all their seats over there. We'll vote for all the Pākehās over here." People need to explain and to have this serious discussion. Are we saying that a person who is elected into a council seat because they are Māori has a mandate to represent all those Māori? Well what if they are not tangata whenua? What if they are not from that district? What if they have come in from outside and they do not have any whakapapa in that hapū or that iwi? You can tell for sure that the post-settlement governance entity is going to go knock knock knock on their door and say: "Oi! We want a word with you. We don't like what you've been saying." If we are going to have this discussion about Māori representation then I guess we are going to have the discussion about "Which Māori? Who Māori?" and I do not see anyone wanting to have that discussion right now. So I think if we are going to have this discussion let us have the whole discussion. Let us put it out there. But frankly we in New Zealand First do not think we need it. We in New Zealand First will vote against this bill."