Paraone PitaPITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. I want to preface my contribution to this debate by signalling that New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill and it will be for various reasons and there will be a number of speakers during the course of this debate who will express their own views.I want to pick up on the comments made in reference to the number of consultation meetings. I suppose Minister Flavell and his department should be commended for that number but I think where it falls down is that no comment has been made about how many of those consultation hui actually said they supported the bill. You might have discussed it but none of them that I am aware of actually said: We support the bill. Go to it Minister and make the changes." While I would support the notion that the old legislation Te Ture Whenua Māori Act should have had some changes I used the analogy in my second reading speech that said that all that Act really needed was to fix the flat tire not to replace the whole car. I think this is what we are seeing now and that is why it has taken so long for this bill to come before the Committee at this stage. I think that the Minister is making a mistake in railroading this bill through the House because I know that there are a number of Māori organisations even at this stage that supported the notion of making some changes to the legislation but having made those changes now they do not support the bill to the same extent that they indicated to the Minister during the early stages.I also want to make comment that in the submission made by the Māori Land Court judges—and I thought it was a very good submission because they being involved in the administration of Māori land by virtue of being judges in the Māori Land Court had a clear understanding of the Act. Amongst their concerns was the introduction of a number of different concepts that they described as legally untested things "such as 'kaitiaki' of governance bodies 'rangatōpu' and 'relationships of descent' amongst others. It will introduce an extensive new lexicon of statutory terms previously unknown." We have heard from my colleagues who have spoken before me this evening making reference to some of those terms particularly in the area of the principles of Parts 1 to 9 of the bill as outlined in clause 3(4). One of the principles is that "tikanga Māori is central to matters involving Māori land;". I have no problem with that but I would say to you Minister Flavell that a lot of Māori today do not look at it in terms of tikanga; they look at in terms of their entitlement irrespective of the size of the interest that they might have.I certainly agree with the reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is in recognition of the Treaty that was actually signed by our tūpuna. The principle of owners of Māori land having the right to decide how the Māori land is used—that has always been there. That is nothing new. I think the problem has been their ability to be able to use it. I am hoping that this bill will provide easy access for our people to use their land but we know that is not so much the access to how they use their land but having the resources to do so. I do not think that this bill addresses that issue because it cannot. At the end of the day if you do not have the financial resources then you are not going to make any difference to the present situation. While the Minister has established a development fund that in itself is not enough for the real issue because of the amount of Māori land that is unused."