Jones ShaneHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): Kia ora anō tātau. New Zealand First will not support the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. That should not however be seen as a negative reflection on a dear colleague the sitting member for the southern Māori seat Te Wai Pounamu widely respected by the members of our caucus and indeed the grandson of the first of the Tirikatenes to come into this House in the days before the Rātana members from the other four quarters made an appearance. Neither is it to cast any negative reflection upon the fantastic economic achievements and cultural revival achievements of the Ngāi Tahu in the South Island or indeed wherever they find their members. This is a matter of principle that the caucus is unwilling to move away from.The principle is quite simple: of all the Māori tribes in Aotearoa without a doubt the most powerful of those tribes is the Ngāi Tahu tribe. They had the foresight firstly to pass the Ngāi Tahu bill which was opposed by one of their own members Sandra Lee. It was also opposed by the New Zealand Māori Council and in those deliberations that council was represented by Maanu Paul. The gestation and the emergence of that bill was a hard-fought struggle as they moved on from the previous Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board created I should imagine or administered under the 1955 Act. So we are talking about the most well-endowed most powerful of all the Māori tribes of Te Ao Māori. We salute them and continue to acknowledge the very deep economic furrow they are planting and the seeds that are growing and generating economic upside for the members of their tribe but they do not need a culturally paved avenue into this statutory body. They have the power and they have the historical and mana whenua associations within their own territory to well and truly stand up for themselves.The application of the law is not colour-blind. The application of the law is exercised via the provisions in the various statutes that this regional council will be responsible for delivering upon and at the end of the day the governance oversight for those provisions down in the actual bureaucracy will be by those folk who have been elected via a universal franchise. That is the position that our caucus cleaves to and it will not be dissuaded from that course of action on this particular bill. Matters pertaining to the future of the Māori seats—those issues are yet to come before the Parliament.Now I want to comment a little on one of the areas that we see as a conundrum in this bill. We most certainly acknowledge that there is one tribe into Te Wai Pounamu with the exception of the people at the prow of Māui's waka in Te Tau Ihu around the Golden Bay - Nelson - Blenheim area. Those are the small tribes of Tainui and Kurahaupō waka—eight of them—but what we're more concerned about is that it's not feasible we don't think it is defensible for a group that has inordinately large resources of an economic character that the ability to develop those resources will depend on the nature and the quality of statutory environmental resource management decisions. Those decisions must be separate from the people of the Ngāi Tahu. This is the position of our caucus. That's not to say an individual Kai Tahu person should not one day want to go on that council but in terms of being appointed to the council through the tribal route up to a Minister and the Minister accepting the nomination after whatever processes the bureaucracy might be required to attend to—we cannot and we do not agree with that.So obviously it is important that the people of this part of Aotearoa restore to themselves the ability to manage their affairs through universal franchise. Today despite the disappointment that might be felt on the marae in the Ngāi Tahu we will not support this bill.