Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): It is with great disappointment that ACT won't be able to support this bill because as an omnibus bill introduced under Standing Order 267(1)(a) it deals with a bunch of interrelated topics that can be regarded as implementing a single broad policy" to improve the processes by which individuals and communities are represented through and participate in local government elections—I mean that sounds wonderful as a single broad policy. It provides councils with an improved process for deciding representation arrangements and makes specific consideration of Māori representation a fundamental step in that process.Well the ACT Party believes that all New Zealanders should have equal rights to representation no matter what their ethnicity and making specific provisions for Māori representation actually sounds quite patronising in 2023 doesn't it—doesn't it? It sounds quite patronising—specific representation in 2023.When we consider how this applies to Auckland Council in particular Auckland Council already has two permanent voting members appointed as part of the Independent Māori Statutory Board who sit on Auckland Council can have a say on matters that affect mana whenua in Auckland and make sure that if there are Treaty settlements that affect Treaty partners in Auckland their views are taken account of. That's important. I mean that reflects the obligation that Crown has to iwi through the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process.But the ACT Party doesn't believe that there's any justification to force councils to carry out representation reviews with the specific objective of establishing Māori seats for electors on the Māori roll to elect only Māori candidates to Māori seats because in a city like Auckland there's over 200 nationalities and languages represented in our city. About 15 percent of Auckland's population is Māori but about 15 percent also is ethnic Chinese and speaks Cantonese or Mandarin as their first language. Of course Auckland has a very large and well-established population of people who have been welcomed from Pacific Island countries over many many decades who make up the foundation and fabric of the great multinational liberal city that is Auckland.So it seems retrograde patronising unnecessary ideological almost pathological the way that Labour is pursuing this divisive co-governance agenda of trying to apply different rights to people because of their ethnicity. It's almost as if there is some compulsion that Labour has to deliver for a group of elites that no doubt exist within the Labour Party as well—a form of separate representation that the Labour Party in their flawed wisdom believe addresses some unknown grievance that has yet to be identified as a result of breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.Now if there were breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi by the Crown which then led to a form of redress being establishing specific Māori seats for say a region like Auckland or requiring local government to go through the process of providing for specific Māori seats for electors of the Māori roll then we would've heard about that. There would've been a Waitangi Tribunal decision which makes that clear. But that hasn't been described by the Hon Kieran McAnulty the Minister responsible for this bill. There is no supporting legal opinion; there's nothing about that in the regulatory impact assessment or in the legislative statement so we can only assume that this is part of Labour's flawed ideological—in fact given the party's polling and the way the public sees them right now an almost pathological obsession with dividing New Zealanders by ethnicity and race as if seeing identity first before recognising the person behind the identity is some kind of virtue.Well the ACT Party says it's not a virtue. It's a deep deep flaw in the approach that the Labour Party and its allies have taken to the way they treat New Zealanders and their individual rights. So the ACT Party will not be supporting this bill despite the fact that it does provide some flexibility to local government to rearrange boundaries to reorder their representation in accordance with the population of different districts or regions or suburbs within a region. The ACT Party can't support it because of the obsessive compulsive divisive co-governance agenda which this bill represents.Now fortunately there may be an opportunity to change the provisions of this bill in the very near future. So while this is being pushed through under urgency today the people of New Zealand will have their say and have their way at the October general election. There'll be an opportunity to reverse some of these changes. So that's what the ACT Party is offering the people of New Zealand. Give your party vote to ACT and we'll turn over some of this divisive co-governance nonsense and we'll restore the Kiwi dream. One person one vote; equal before the law—a liberal multi-ethnic democracy facing forward into the 21st century not looking backwards 200 years."