Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister I have a question about clause 23A General requirements: use and presentation of information". It's absolutely vital that spatial plans are made with the best information. That could be light detection and ranging data scanning from aircraft satellite hydrogeological data about what happens to groundwater in a region when rain falls.Minister clause 23A(1) says: "A regional planning committee must ensure that its regional spatial strategy is—(a) as far as practicable based on robust and reliable evidence and other information including mātauranga Māori". Are we to infer Minister that robust and reliable evidence and mātauranga Māori are incompatible? One is robust and reliable; one is mātauranga Māori. That's not how it's been pitched but that's how it's written.And Minister if we come to clause 25 "General considerations: other matters"—matters that must be considered—it says "(2)(d) any technical evidence and advice including advice on mātauranga Māori". Now technical evidence may include based on my participation in resource consent hearings and in planning hearings—and Minister I understand that in your former role as a resource management lawyer a practitioner you would be familiar with evidence—Hon Scott Simpson: Eminent practitioner.SIMON COURT: An eminent practitioner the Hon Scott Simpson says. So fortunately we probably have the most qualified and competent Minister in the chair right now when it comes to resource management law. Minister "technical evidence" I assume would include geotechnical evidence evidence about slips fault lines soils erosion; evidence about water quality could include the background chemical composition of soils and the background or natural chemical composition of water—technical evidence and advice.But Minister what advice would a submitter or somebody giving evidence provide about mātauranga Māori? Well Minister the ACT Party proposed a definition of mātauranga. We would have been satisfied if that definition meant traditional Māori knowledge—knowledge that was derived or acquired before European settlement in New Zealand; knowledge that might relate to an oral tradition say for example of when a tsunami hit the East Coast of the North Island and what that did to the people who lived there what that meant; if it wiped out the double-hulled waka that were on the beaches that day; if it killed the navigators and the waka builders. If that information could be correlated to the geological record of when that tsunami hit and how far inland it reached that might be very useful traditional Māori knowledge. It would be very helpful to have had a definition in this bill and in the Natural and Built Environment Bill of what mātauranga Māori might be so that decision makers and planners could give weight to that knowledge.Now one of the problems with the mātauranga Māori is that because it's an oral tradition after a number of retellings it becomes unreliable—Shanan Halbert: Problem?SIMON COURT: And there are a number of studies that demonstrate that Mr Shanan Halbert that it becomes unreliable after a number of retellings over generations.So Minister the ACT Party has proposed—in fact I proposed in committee to move the following amendment: that we delete reference to including mātauranga Māori and advice on mātauranga Māori in clauses 23A and 25. Because in the absence of a definition of mātauranga Māori and in the absence of any conditional application of that knowledge—in other words how it should be weighted given the number of retellings and its degradation in terms of quality of evidence as you would be aware of in your role as a resource management practitioner—shouldn't we Minister simply delete it if it can't be identified as to what it means?"