Davis KelvinKELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): It is my pleasure to actually take my first call in the Committee stage of Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. For various reasons I have been fortunate enough to have been granted leave to attend to events up in Tai Tokerau while the Committee stage has been going on. My apologies if I do repeat issues that have been raised before but as I said this is my first contribution in the Committee stage of this bill.In addressing Part 5 I just have to apologise because I will be flicking through from Part 5 back to the schedules and back to other parts of the bill as well because they tie up—just by the nature of the size of the bill being some 16 parts and eight schedules it takes a bit of to-ing and fro-ing through the pages of the bill to actually pull together various arguments.Clause 154(2) talks about—I will read what it says: A governance body whether it is a body corporate the trustees of a trust or a statutory office holder is managed by its kaitiaki being the persons who occupy a position in the body that is comparable with that of a director of a company." My issue here is the use of Māori terms in what is for all intents and purposes the English version of this.The problem can be that there is confusion for our people around the term "kaitiaki" in this. Kaitiaki in Māori means—"tiaki" means to care for something; "kai" at the front of a verb has the effect of putting e-r on the end of a word. So "tiaki" meaning to care for something; "kaitiaki" meaning a carer. For me in this context a kaitiaki is not really something that is comparable to that of a director of a company. To direct something is like to tohutohu. In my belief and I will admit I am not a fluent speaker of Te Reo Māori a more appropriate term would have been a kaitohutohu but there are probably even more appropriate terms to use for a director of a company. My preference in these English versions of bills is actually just to use English terminology and if there is a Māori translation to have a Māori translation there. But certainly for somebody in a position that is comparable to that of a director of a company kaitiaki is not the best term to use.I will move on to clauses 154(3)(a) and 154(3)(b)(i). It is the word "owners". I will just read what subclause 3 says: "The types of governance body that may be appointed are set out in section 158. The key difference between the types of governance body is the extent to which owners or the court have a role to play in the appointment of kaitiaki as follows: (a) if the governance body is a rangatōpū kaitiaki appointments must be approved by the owners …". Further down it says in subclause 3(b): "(i) the owners will have direct involvement in the process for appointing a kaitiaki …".That sounds great on the surface. My issue is with who the owners are. Which owners? It makes it sound like all owners will have input into these decisions. The reality is that it is really only the owners who basically can be contacted and know that there is going to be a meeting of sorts to make these decisions. This particular clause 154(3) asks us to refer to schedule 3. I refer to schedule 3 clause 5(2) that "The incoming owners must approve the appointments of at least 3 kaitiaki who are eligible under section 184(3) to hold that position." Clause 5(3) of schedule 3 states: "If the proposed rangatōpū is registered as a body corporate or operating under an existing trust deed the incoming owners may approve existing directors or trustees as kaitiaki or appoint new kaitiaki".It talks a lot about the ability of owners to influence things such as appointments of kaitiaki. If we flick back in the bill—this is clause 51A—it talks about the participation thresholds. This talks about—in fact I will read it: "(1) The participation thresholds that must be satisfied for participating owners of a parcel of land to validly agree to a decision under Parts 1 to 9"—so that includes Part 5 that I am talking about—"or a governance agreement—(a) are the thresholds specified in this section;".I just want to go through those participation thresholds. If there are 10 or fewer owners of a parcel of land and they are making a decision say on the appointment of a kaitiaki as in Part 5 then all the owners must participate. That sounds pretty straightforward. However clause 51A(3)(b) states that if "there are more than 10 but not more than 100 owners there must be participation by at least 10 owners whose individual freehold interests total a 25% or more share in the parcel:". So that means if there are up to 100 owners 90 percent of those owners may not actually participate in this decision making and when it comes to a vote you need a majority of those 10 owners who are participating. So in other words six can make the decision on behalf of the other 100. Six out of 100—so 6 percent of the owners can make a decision on behalf of the rest of the owners.I understand that there needs to be some sort of threshold. I just think that these thresholds that affect Parts 1 to 9 including Part 5 that I am talking about are set pretty low. In Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill that we are discussing the problem is not so much of Māori land being lost out of ownership from Māoridom into non-Māori hands. It is more that some owners may be disenfranchised by others who are owners—others who are probably more knowledgable of processes and laws such as this.However I will go on to talk about—if there are more than 100 but not more than 500 owners there must be participation by at least 20 owners. So 20 owners out of 500 is less than 5 percent. So 5 percent of the owners may participate in this decision making and of those 20 you need a majority of the 20 so that is 11—11 people can make a decision that overrides the interests of 489 people. Subclause (3)(d) states that if "there are more than 500 owners there must be participation by at least 50 owners whose individual freehold interests total a 10% or more share in the parcel." In other words you could have say 2000 owners but only 50 of those owners need to participate in the decision making of which you need a majority. So that is 26 people out of 2000—my maths is not that fast but it is a very low percentage of people who can make decisions on behalf of the vast majority.Like I said I understand that there needs to be some participation threshold because some owners may be dead. Many owners cannot be contacted. We have to look at the reasons why some of those owners may not be contactable. It could be for example—as we know there are many owners New Zealanders Māori living in Australia now. So what happens if the owner lives in Australia works up in the mines somewhere is barely contactable and the times when the meetings are being held are possibly inconvenient to that owner who happens to be living overseas—Pita Paraone: Too bad. They miss out.KELVIN DAVIS: As my colleague from New Zealand First says it is too bad; they miss out. That to me is really unfortunate. That person may be like I say working in the mines. They may not be able to access the hui that is being held by Skype or even by phoning in so there are a number of reasons why owners may not be able to participate and so I just think that the thresholds are set way too low. I think that the—"