Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): We can't wait till the Māori seats are at risk to then decide to entrench them. That cannot be the way that we go about ensuring that we are upholding Te Tiriti. That cannot be the way that we go about ensuring that we are upholding the constitutional equality that needs to exist between entrenching general seats and making sure that we are equally protecting Māori seats. At the moment our general seats are protected to the extent that they require a 75 percent majority for them to be rearranged and overturned. That is not the case for the Māori seats; that is legal discrimination that is moral discrimination that is constitutional discrimination. The Green Party are proud to have in our high-level charter and constitutional kaupapa for our party that we name Te Tiriti as being the founding document of Aotearoa and that tangata whenua have unique status in Aotearoa not another minority status—that we have unique status. We have held a long policy of entrenching our Māori seats.The Opposition tonight has gone through a list of things that are also not as protected with the 75 percent threshold. There are a whole lot of other things that are protected with the 75 percent majority-vote threshold that are not just the general seats. This is what else is protected with a 75 percent majority before they are able to be changed: we protect the term of Parliament; we protect the setting up of the Representation Commission; we protect the part of law that provides the general seats and the division of New Zealand into electorates; we protect allowances for population unders and overs in electorates; we protect the voting age; and we protect MMP. Why can we not also equally protect the Māori seats with the 75 percent protection gate?It is very clear that we should be allowing for Māori to be the decision makers of our Māori processes in electoral law that indigenous constitutional standards should be for Māori to have the final say over that we cannot allow for a majority to be able to dictate what happens with minority electoral processes. The Māori seats provide a guaranteed representation—a guaranteed representation—because this is not even just about being proportional; this is about guaranteeing that no matter what happens there is always a mandated clear voice accountable directly to Māori communities. This is the value and the beauty of Māori seats for all of Aotearoa not just for Māori—that making sure that Māori have an accountability to be able to lead with a tikanga Māori and a kaupapa Māori world view in our political decision-making is for the benefit of our whole country not just for Māori. There are many many ways that the Māori seats have proven themselves to represent their interests directly. I stand here as a list MP. There are many examples but I did—she was in the House—want to acknowledge for example the leadership of Minister Nanaia Mahuta in leading an iwi-lead response to homelessness. Again given that far too many of our Māori are disproportionately represented in people who do not have a good decent secure place to live it is absolutely right that iwi and Māori organisations are given the resourcing and the trust to enable their visions of how to get us out of this mess with our own people in particular given that support. This is Māori direct accountability to Māori communities Māori whānau hapū and iwi and the guarantee of that accountability is something that absolutely should be protected.I was honoured to chair the Māori Affairs Committee through the hearings of this bill. I was honoured to chair because our chair Rino Tirikatene is the proud sponsor of this absolutely essential piece of legislation. I commend and will continue to commend him for bringing this bill into the House. I stepped up into the chairing position as deputy chair and we were able to listen to the submissions and were able to hear the whakaaro the opinions of people who wanted to have their voice heard on this bill. Yes it's true again this is why—this is why—we cannot have majority-making decisions for minority communities because you are going to get a flood of opinions coming from a place of ill-information I will say who are against this bill because they see it as favouritism because they see it as privileging. So we do get a flood of those voices because when there is a majority—and we haven't had those conversations and we haven't yet had generations of historical New Zealand history in schools—then we will have majority floods that actually skew what should be happening for constitutional and Tiriti good.We did see that in written submissions. Then in the oral submissions we were able to hear incredibly well-thought-out robust submissions informed from a place of insight and lived experience as to why entrenching and protecting Māori seats is important. I just wanted to acknowledge my absolute honour in being able to chair our select committee process and allow for people of all opinions to be able to have their say on this piece of legislation.I want to acknowledge what we heard through some of the submissions—that entrenching Māori seats is not the only piece of work that our House needs to be doing to ensure that we have got equal access and an equality in our democracy and in our engagement systems. I wanted to acknowledge that while it is outside the scope of the bill there were submissions from many submitters who felt that it was important to point to what other work needs to happen alongside this legislation to ensure that we have a fair democratic process. As an example when it comes to Māori seats we would like the Greens have already got a member's bill drafted by Golriz Ghahraman to see Māori being able to switch between the general roll and Māori roll as often as we please as opposed to the status quo which is only every five years. That also did come through some of the submissions that came before the select committee.I really just wanted to again reiterate to the previous speaker my good colleague Matt King of the North who I have a respect for on our Māori Affairs Committee—as I do for all of our colleagues—simply that we cannot wait till these seats are under threat to then protect them. We need to put that assuredness in place right now. We can do that. The opportunity is before us as we stand this very second. The Green Party are proud to be able to hold our head up in full support of this legislation from my esteemed colleague Mr Rino Tirikatene. Thank you.