Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Mr Speaker. I thank the member Paul Goldsmith for his comments and I might pick up where he left off but first I want to mihi to Rawiri Waititi. He is a politician in this House who will go down as one of the best of us. He is a delight around the select committee table he has a huge heart for his people he is an incredible orator and his member's bill is pretty good but it's not good enough.I didn't know that when we were talking about tactical roll-switching—now tactical roll-switching is not something I have observed and it's certainly not something the Electoral Commission has observed. But this fulla he is a tactical roll-switcher! Let me tell you about how in 2014 Rawiri Waititi and I worked together on the Labour ticket. We were together out there engaging Māori voters as two young promising Labour Māori candidates. There's a lovely photo and it has Soraya Peke-Mason me Rawiri and our leader David Cunliffe—Shanan Halbert: And me!ARENA WILLIAMS: —and Shanan Halbert. We're all around David Cunliffe giving a big rah-rah at Koroneihana and he's loving it—he is loving it. And it's tactical it's thoughtful—and he is a tactical and thoughtful politician. He's on that side of the House now but we know he's with us; and he knows we're with him. And that's why on this issue we broadly agree but the House tonight is debating the question of Whose bill does it better?" Is it Labour's bill or is it the Māori Party bill? And on this one I have to say that Labour has landed a position here which is going to pass. And that's got to be the test—our bill on this side of the House has landed on a consensus-based position which we wouldn't have got to with this one. So I have to say that when we work together—Labour and the Māori Party—we get things done. And I thank Rawiri for bringing this bill but that's the reality. It was a good election campaign that 2014 campaign. I was a new candidate. I was running against Andrew Bayly; he was also a new candidate. We had a lot of fun on the campaign trail. Didn't see any evidence of tactical roll-switching but I saw some tactical switching to me as a candidate—some good National Party heartlanders told me that they were going to vote for me—Andrew Bayly: Really?ARENA WILLIAMS: Yeah that's right! Went down to the local Baptist church with David Clark here whose parents live in the electorate too and I think I won the room that day on that debate. It was a good tactical switch—Jamie Strange: I was in Taupō.ARENA WILLIAMS: —and Jamie Strange was running in that 2014 election too; good proper candidates in 2014 I have to say—and Willow-Jean Prime she beat me on the list. But she did well; she did well. And Rawiri would've done well too if he'd gotten up there ahead of Willow but you know Willow's pretty good so that's why she's up there.Look I just want to make a quick point further to my point about which bill solves this problem better and it simply is the Government bill. But what I wanted to talk about a little bit more seriously is an important issue that Rawiri has raised here and has been commenting on in the media and he's raised a very useful discussion for us to have in this House which is how we engage with Māori and how we make sure that Māori have their say in the democratic process.Now I know that a lot of that has to do with the way that people engage with their lives and their community around them more generally. It's not just about politics but it's about people feeling like they have a say in the community they have a stake in the community that they belong there that they are valued and that their neighbours hear them and that they can talk to these people. But then some of that is about being able to see in their local politicians and in the leaders of political parties people who look like them and talk like them and think like them.That is a very real and important role of the Māori seats. It's one I will always defend. It's the reason I am on the Māori roll. And though I live in the heart of Manurewa and I cannot and will not ever be able to vote for myself I believe in the Māori seats because they represent an avenue for Māori to seek the kind of representation which under Te Tiriti o Waitangi we are guaranteed and this is a very reasonable and rational conversation for us to have about how we best exercise those rights.Now there's something in Rawiri's bill—it's clause 5 which inserts new subsection (3) into section 76 of the Act—which I actually think doesn't really do that. It's about—if you are Māori it says "… who possesses the qualifications in that behalf by this Act and first applies to be registered as an elector does not specify whether they wish to be registered either as an elector of a Maori electoral district or as an elector of a non-Maori electoral district they must be registered as a elector of the Maori electoral district." I think that undermines the importance of the Māori seats and the way that they operate now and that's why I wouldn't support it. And that's why I can't support this bill."