Tirikatene Rino: Patents Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Patents Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12970. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga):Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. I thought I would pick up on the contributions from my colleague Clare Curran on theMāori advisory committee. I understand it comes in at Part 6 of this Patents Bill but if my colleague could send me a copy of that Supplementary Order Paper 348 I would be most appreciative.I want to make some comments on the advisory committee because there has been aMāori trade marks advisory group around for—I would say—close to 10 years now. It was quite an innovative thing at the time of its creation and I understand that it has been doing some very good work in terms of providing advice on trademark applications. I do not want to be sort of stretching into Part 6 but because this Supplementary Order Paper on this part deals with theMāori advisory committee I want to make a contribution.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well done.RINO TIRIKATENE: Thank you to my colleague for the copy. I think we do need to look closely at the role of the advisory committee. It is commendable that it is included in the bill and that it follows from the advice of the royal commission but in contrast with theMāori Trade Marks Advisory Committee the power of appointment to the committee is in the hands of the commissioner. If you look at theMāori Trade Marks Advisory Committee you see that the membership of that committee has hardly changed in over 10 years and you have a lot of—what should I call them—intellectual-type people mainly Auckland-based people and maybe some Wellington bureaucratic - type people who have been members of that committee for a very very long time. I would not want to see the composition of the patents advisory committee drawn from the same type of people.I come from the South Island and we are very very aware of ourMāori interests in our flora and fauna and our natural landscape. It is disappointing to see that there is very little South Island input into say theMāori Trade Marks Advisory Committee and that has been the case for close to 10 years. Although it is not specified in the bill it would be advisable I believe to have geographically broad iwi representation and consideration but more fundamentally to have expertise in those matters when the commissioner actually comes to selecting people to sit on these advisory committees.I have just a further remark: we do want to make sure that they are the best people for the job. This is highly specialised and also culturally significant expertise that is required but I do not think that it is helpful to have advisory committee members appointed for such long durations of time—in excess of a decade or whatever. They just roll them over and roll them over. I think there needs to be some consideration of their performance and giving others a go. Basically you knowMāoridom is made up of many iwi and manyhapū within those iwi and there is a lot of expertise right around the country—traditional expertise on tikangaMāori andmātaurangaMāori. I think it isfair that we give a broad representation and regular advice or expertise if there is expertise—and I know there is expertise on many many different maraes and inwhānau andhapū right around the country—so that we freshen up the composition of these bodies with the expertise that is there right around the countryside.Sure I guess you have to have a mix a composition on any type of board or advisory committee but comparing it with theMāori Trade Marks Advisory Committee I see names on that committee that have been there for close on 10 years. Being from the South Island I do not know who they are. Many of these people are just academics from Auckland so I do not want to see those sorts of same old same old institutionalised people put on to these advisory committees representing all ofMāoridom. They are defending ourpā. They are the ones who will be defending ourpā. They are advising the commissioner and so we need to get a broad mix of ourmātauranga of our tohunga you could say of our traditional expertise incorporated into that committee.I know that there is no size limit given to the committee but I would certainly hope that there would be a fair representation of the geographically diverse iwi from the North Island and the South Island and that their tikangaMāori expertise would be incorporated into the full composition of that advisory committee. But I will give further remarks on this matter when we get to Part 6. I just wanted to pick up on that given that I heard that the member Metiria Turei had mentioned the advisory committee in Supplementary Order Paper 348. Kia ora.