Halbert ShananSHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. I open this evening with a whakataukī from Te Whiti o Rongomai from Parihaka: He puāwai au nō runga i te tikanga. He rau rengarenga nō roto i te raukura. Ko taku raukura he manawanui ki te ao.[I am a descendant from the righteous endeavours a healing herb from within the sacred emblem. A sacred emblem is a symbol of my unwavering dedication of prosperity good health and wellbeing.]This whakataukī speaks to our support for the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill that we are discussing this evening because this bill will eliminate the problem of rate arrears accumulating on land that the owners derive no economic benefit from. This will enable owners of Māori land to discuss development opportunities with their council without the fear that they will first be asked to pay their rates arrears. It is a barrier to the progression of where we're at as a country. Quite often I speak about our nationhood about being on the right side of the law at this point of our pathway as a country and what we saw in the Māori wards debate is opposition to the progression of who we are as Aotearoa New Zealand. And now is the time for us to progress Māori interests to enable Māori land and the Māori economy and to support those to progress the things that we want to not to create barriers.This evening I want to speak to Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau. I know that this has been through the Māori Affairs Committee last year before my time and the select committee made amendments to the bill at that particular time. Those amendments that they recommended were the rating of multiple blocks clarifying the origin of Māori land blocks establishing when a local authority may be satisfied preventing the sale of Māori land that was converted into general land under the Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1967 the power of a chief executive to write off rates separate rating areas on Māori land and the registration in the emissions trading scheme is not a use of the land itself.I took the time to read the submission from Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau our Auckland Council and it's my job as an Auckland-based electorate MP in Northcote to share their thoughts in their submission the things that they achieved. Across the House and across our Labour team it's important that we understand what our councils are doing and what their vision is for laws such as this. And in fact they're doing quite a lot. They're doing the mahi of what we're asking them to do. And this is a step towards a fairer system that enables Māori and particularly enables Māori iwi Māori to engage with council in a meaningful way.The Māori land in Auckland has 265 properties in Māori freehold land title covering 8600 hectares of land. This represents less than 0.1 percent of the Auckland rating base. That's not much but it's an opportunity for Māori to engage meaningfully with our local council to talk about solutions and opportunities of how they can get involved and they can start to develop their whenua. Auckland Council supports the proposed amendments set out in the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill (the Bill). The proposals align with the council's current policies regarding Māori land rates. The Bill also provides council with new powers that will enable us to address long standing issues"—they say—"with rating Māori land. In particular Auckland Council supports the proposed amendments to: expand the categories of non-rateable Māori land [to] empower local authorities to write off arrears"—yes that's right to empower our local authorities—"[to] treat rating units of Māori freehold land used as a single economic unit as a single unit for rating purposes to reduce the number of fixed charges that apply [that we] enable Māori freehold land to be apportioned on request into separate rating areas so that separate occupiers of the land can be rated directly only for the portion of … land [that] they use". For Tāmaki-makau-rau this is an opportunity to work with Māori and we've seen steps. We've seen their aspirations in Auckland for Māori wards. They celebrate the work that this Government has done. So thank you very much. I commend this bill to the House."