Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you very much Madam Chair. It's my first opportunity to speak on the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill and I've listened very carefully to the contributions when I've had an opportunity to be in the House and I certainly don't question anybody's intentions or the genuineness of the views that they hold.I do however have a question for the Minister. Is this about equal opportunity or is it about equal outcome; and has the Minister thought about the consequences of the latter option? Because everywhere that has been tried—and that's what I can see in this Schedule; that's what it looks like to me: a constructed piece of legislation to ensure some sort of equal outcome in a council sense—elsewhere in the world it requires a totalitarian state to enforce it. I think that while this won't create a totalitarian state we have to remember that actually in the last 12 months restrictions have been put on our freedom through this COVID situation and how quickly people have come to accept those things. I think that's a very real thing that needs to be addressed and I think the Minister—I'd love to hear that from her.I think when I heard the Minister say that this side of the House might not agree with what she was saying in her previous contribution that's absolutely right but I suspect that the great majority of New Zealanders don't agree with what she was saying either. I think this whole construction that she's trying to put into local government actually is designed to in some way silence those people.Councils have processes and existing ways to try and encourage Māori participation. In my council anyway where I live in Marlborough Marlborough District Council they don't have Māori wards. They've never sought to have them as far as I'm aware but they do have iwi representatives on committees. They take that very seriously. They have full input if they wish on their decisions and I think that's been a proactive response from that council.Going to the next step and then setting up—a council taking the step to set up Māori wards without consulting their communities and now with this legislation being able to ignore that voice from the community—I think that's very odd. Why would you set out to do that? If you believe that you'd stand on that basis in the election and that doesn't seem to have been the case. Though I don't doubt for a moment the genuine intent of the Minister to try and make things better—or what is the problem definition here? It seems like Māori representation as elected councillors is pretty close to their population percentage. However I accept that won't be evenly spread around the country but I go back to my question—what is this about?Is this about equal opportunity or is it about trying to have equal outcome? Unfortunately sometimes that's not fair but actually it's not an equal-outcome world. That's the way it is. Some of us are made differently in terms of a sporting context for example but I think in terms of Māori and the Crown's relationship we have done a pretty good job with our Treaty and our steps forward. Could we have done better? Absolutely we could but I think everything's been done with good intentions on both sides and mistakes have been made along the way and there's no doubt about that.But this is not the solution to all of those issues. In fact it will only create more division—certainly judging by my inbox and I'm sure lots of other members have had similar type emails. All this is doing is generating ill will that we do not need and we're not getting anything out of this other than more problems ahead. I think that's a very serious problem and I think the Minister should reflect on that and I think that she and her caucus should have another think on it altogether.