Coffey TamatiTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. This is the third reading of a bill which has taken a long time to find passage through this House. Can I just refer to some things that the previous speaker Chris Luxon said which is that there are some things in this bill which aren't as—there's this narrative coming from the other side that actually councils already have this ability to be able to write off arrears and for that I just want to point out to those people that are listening that actually that is done in an incredibly haphazard way all around the country.Some councils are incredibly on to it. They understand that actually this is a burdensome problem for Māori land owners and they understand how big rates can get on land and actually that there is no relief in sight—it can be quite problematic and actually a stumbling block to progress.So while some councils—and they should be congratulated for doing that—have absolutely picked that up and run with it there are some councils that don't do a very good job of it at all and that is part of the reason why we're even standing here in this Parliament today debating this particular piece of legislation.Can I just take a moment also to talk about the importance of whenua Māori when we look back on the history on the encyclopaedia of Aotearoa New Zealand from the start to now. Actually whenua Māori has gone through a very turbulent time: much land has been stolen much land has been lost and what that means for Māori land owners is that the remaining bits of land that we have left are incredibly special; they are a taonga and they connect us to our ancestors that have passed. So I want to acknowledge that and probably also put it on the record that it's for that reason that we feel so passionate about this.The ratings of Māori land have been used actually by this House by our Government to smoothly transfer land from Māori hands into other hands. Actually that's a problem and for that reason that's why we are so passionate about this. We want to see this go through and we want to be able to unlock whenua Māori all across the country.There is a saying that we have in Māori: Nā te whenua nā te wahine ka mate te tangata. It means that it is because of women and it is because of land that men die. And never was a truer word spoken: if we look back on the New Zealand Land Wars a lot of that was because of the passion that Māori have for their whenua—because of land because of women men die. There should be an addition to that and I would propose that it should say Because of burdensome rates Māori lose their land." and that's exactly what we've witnessed over successive Governments here in Aotearoa; our history is littered with examples of this. In the past the Government has set the rules as I've said which have smoothly facilitated the transfer of Māori land. Therefore it's only right that this Government in this day and age here in 2020 reverse some of those past wrongs.What we're going to do is we're going to allow chief executives to be able to write off rates arrears and free up Māori land owners to better utilise their land. And I did hear it from the other side when the member was talking about "Why can't we just do this for everybody?" And that's a fair point: why can't we just do it for everybody? This particular bill wasn't brought in specifically for the everybodys; this was brought in in the previous term by the Minister for Māori Development and actually—Hon Simon Bridges: Oh so it's race-based? It's race-based law?TĀMATI COFFEY: Well it is; it is. And anybody that thinks that actually we shouldn't be having something like this is ignorant of that history of our country and should probably pop along to a local school next year when we roll out history in schools to try and learn about some of the history of this country.Can I talk about since the member for Tauranga is speaking so loudly—let's talk about what life is like back in the Bay of Plenty. Now we have approximately 240000 hectares of Māori land; it's the highest proportion in Aotearoa New Zealand. In Rotorua 18.9 percent of our whenua is Māori land; in Tauranga 11.8 percent; in Whakatāne 16 percent; and in Ōpōtiki 10 percent. Of approximately 5378 Māori land blocks more than half of those land blocks are ungoverned. There is no governance structure over the top of them. Therefore it makes the land blocks underutilised and underdeveloped. This bill will help to unlock the land by removing the shackles of rates.I support this bill because I support it as part of the broader initiatives that we are moving through this House in terms of the initiatives to support Māori land owners to be able to use develop live on their land as well—initiatives like the ones that were announced earlier this week—to be able to assist Māori land owners with things like services getting infrastructure getting water getting roads to our land blocks so that actually Māori can be part of this conversation.As we talk about a housing crisis here in New Zealand actually I'll tell you where there is lots of land: Māori land. But unfortunately a lot of that land is burdened with rates and this bill will look to turn that around. So for that reason knowing that this is part of a broader suite of reforms that our Government is passionate about putting through I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora."