McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Chair and I thank the Minister for the partial explanation she has given of some points that particularly interest me. One of the things that interests me about this clause particularly in respect of the Ruapehu District Council is that some councils who have already gone through the process and had a referendum to throw this out as I said earlier have now got until May to reverse that decision. I think that puts those councils in a very difficult decision because they've already had a referendum overturning their decision to implement a Māori ward or Māori wards. They've now got the opposite occurring where they can before May of this year decide to reconstitute a decision that was overturned by a poll. So I think that puts them in a dangerous position.The other interesting thing about these clauses related to particularly the referendum and the way this is dealt with is that if you look at Ruapehu there's a Māori population of around about 43 percent. If you look at the Manawatū district there's a Māori population of around about 16 percent. So clearly if you'd gone to referendum in those two districts you may well have got a different result from people who voted on the basis of purely Māori interests or of achieving a Māori ward. I don't think that necessarily has happened actually and in my time in local government we certainly didn't get that kind of feedback from our community.So I think that there are some interesting challenges for some of the councils who have gone through this process in the last 12 months and where they might get to as a result of this law change. The other thing that I think is unfortunate with respect to the changes in this clause is that if you look at this as a significant change to a law that's been in place since 2001 and I think I heard the Minister say in perhaps her first reading speech that in fact she never liked section 9 of this law—section 9 of the Local Government Act—and didn't like the way it was put together—Hon Member: It was her legislation.IAN McKELVIE: It was legislation—I didn't like it either actually—passed by the Labour Government of 2001. And we're now nearly 20 years later—in fact 20 years later—changing something that's been unsatisfactory in the Minister's words for those 20 years. So I think that having got to the point where we've decided it's unsatisfactory to rush this through with effectively two days' consultation—and I accept the Minister's explanation and I accept the reason that those councils were notified although it's hardly democratic to notify some people of what's happening and not others giving them the opportunity to forward their views. To take this out of the arena and push it through in the manner it's being pushed through from my perspective is not going to heal any of the damage that was done by the very divisive process in my opinion that the referendum process caused. So I think we're going from one extreme to the other and creating the same damage at both ends. So really my question to the Minister is: does she expect those councils who made this decision in May last year to change their mind in May this year? Is it likely that will happen given that it was the subject of a referendum? And it may or may not have been quite decisive—and in one or two cases it was. Also given the vastly differing populations and make-up of those populations in various parts of our community does she think the same result will apply in areas where we've got those vast differences? I don't know the statistics around the number of people on the Māori roll as opposed to the general roll in those council areas but probably it would be about the same percentage in every area although I know that in the central North Island there's a much stronger emphasis on the Māori roll—and you would know that Mr Chair—than there is in perhaps the southern part of the Rangitīkei electorate. It's just the way it is. I think those questions are pretty important and the most important one for me is: what do those councils do the councils that have had a referendum have overturned a decision that they made as councils—quite significant in some cases? How do they get around or justify the change they may or may not make with respect to the decision they have to make by May this year with respect to 2022?