Tisch Lindsay; Flavell Te UruroaPart 6 Operation of governance bodiesThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): This is debate on clauses 202 to 237 and schedule 3.Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koe Mr Chair kia ora tātau katoa ngā mihi ki a tātau e wānanga nei i tō tātau kaupapa.[Thank you Mr Chair acknowledgments to us all and congratulations to us on deliberating our proposal here.]Part 6 is very much around the operation of governance bodies and I suppose talks about the regulations and the operations of how those entities will act. This part from my perspective strengthens those protections that have been spoken about by members throughout this session making sure that we put in place good protections to ensure that Māori land remains in Māori hands by placing a greater emphasis and clearer responsibilities around governance bodies and kaitiaki. It introduces stricter eligibility criteria more duties responsibilities and accountabilities that are actually similar to those that are applied to company directors and this issue was raised in terms of I think the amendment that Mr Henare moved around the thresholds for 10 years 5 years and so on about whether a trustee should sit on a board or not or an entity.So I think it is very much trying to maintain a similar level of accountability to what is set out in other pieces of legislation. The whole idea is that the trustee's duties in respect of Māori land should obviously be managed by the trust. The Māori Land Court will also have jurisdiction to investigate governance bodies within some parameters. The court's power includes the new powers to disqualify individual governors—referred to as kaitiaki—from holding such a position on any governance body and that power can be exercised in specific circumstances such as some of the issues that were raised by members around the issues of fraud bad faith and failure to exercise reasonable care. As I said it is consistent with other pieces of legislation and I am told that the Companies Act 1993 is absolutely about the issue of disqualification of company directors.In addition to the right of owners or governance bodies to initiate the cancellation of a governance entity the Māori Land Court will be authorised to do so if it is satisfied that the governance body is insolvent the governance body has failed to comply with statutory duties and obligations or its continuation would materially prejudice the owners. This part will also ensure that Māori incorporations will be able to continue to maintain their own share register if they wish. This issue was raised by members earlier as well. I think maintaining their own share register will be one of the factors that the shareholders of an existing Māori incorporation will need to consider when they are deciding whether they want their governance body to become a rangatōpū.So to come to the hub of it while this is a relatively small part of the bigger bill I think it is a further example of the principle of mana motuhake absolutely being recognised within the bill because it is about those governance entities being able to make decisions for themselves not anyone else. I hope that is a good general overview about this part of the bill.