Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on a bill which would bring more Māori land owners to the table to be able to realise the potential of their land and not be hindered by substantive historic ratings bills which were racked up over a long time and have held them back from coming to the table to create governance entities which would manage and own their land and allow those landowners to move forward and to create things on it for the benefit of themselves and further generations.I have three points that I want to talk about. The first is about reducing rating barriers for the owners of Māori land who want to use and develop their land as being something which actually allows councils to collect more rates in the future because as it stands currently when Māori landowners aren't able to come to the table and create these governance entities because of historic rating bills they don't ever use land and there's nothing for councils to be able to collect rates from. The second point I want to talk a little bit more about is why this is just Māori land—and Māori land for the purposes of this discussion is that legal meaning of Māori land and general land which are two very different creatures in our system of tenure. The third is about whether councils can do this already and that's in reply to some of the contributions of the members opposite that this bill does not go far enough to addressing some of the concerns.But first in the face of criticism from the opposite members about this bill being haphazard and not going far enough I want to acknowledge the contributions of two groups of people who have spent 30 40 years advocating in this space for changes to Māori land and changes to allow local government to rate Māori land more effectively. The first is Kenneth Palmer. Professor Palmer retired in 2015 after 46 years as a barrister academic and writer. His books Local Government Law in New Zealand Environmental and Resource Management Law and Local Authorities Law in New Zealand have become the key texts for practitioners in local government in their respective fields. His work is respected at all universities in New Zealand is regularly quoted by the bench in the Environment Court and High Court and the Court of Appeal in these matters. He is our leading light in this field and he is someone who has dedicated significant time as a barrister and a volunteer in advocating for a more fair system of rating Māori land.It's that honesty and integrity and selfless advocacy that the bench have recognised him for in 2015 when he retired and they acknowledged his work when he took the case on behalf of the Mangatū Incorporation in Tūranga which succeeded in the High Court and the Court of Appeal. That case concerned the unfair rating of Māori land under the control of the Mangatū Incorporation and from those cases the set of Mangatū principles for fair valuation were created.The point here is that through volunteer advocacy in the work of lawyers who are taking a public interest case we relied on our court systems to create principles that local government could rely on to fairly evaluate the value of Māori land for rating systems. Back then it was groundbreaking that Mr Palmer took the view that Māori land should not have the same value for rating as general land due to the restrictions of sale. That's an important point here. The reason why Māori land has different rating systems as determined in our courts is that there are restrictions on who the land can be sold to and how it can be governed. If you are the owner of Māori land you may be one of thousands and you can only sell your interest however small it may be as a first resort to someone who shares whakapapa with you to that land to its original owners.So the potential for developing that land in a commercial way really comes down to agreement of those owners—perhaps thousands perhaps tens of thousands—and the efficacy of the governance systems put in place by those owners. That's why our courts over 20 years have had to develop this law to ensure that there is fairness for the rating systems here and that's why I'm proud that on this side of the House we've come with a practical sensible way to implement the recommendations of people like Kenneth Palmer who have spent many years of their career advocating for such a solution to allow Māori land owners something akin to fairness in the land ownership system and in our tenure system which is in itself a colonial construct.The other people that I want to recognise in this debate are the Mangatū Incorporations themselves. They are my family of Tūranga. They hold land holdings the size of Auckland. They have vineyards sheep and beef farms productive forest and they hold the lands of significance to Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki and the many tens of thousands of descendants who whakapapa to that iwi. They have direct exporting relationships with a number of countries and they have an innovative farm-to-plate system which allows them to export directly into economies like Canada. They are a significant player in our economies and our primary sector industry. They are also a group which has spent an incredible amount of time effort and money in clarifying the law in this area. The best we can do in this House is to acknowledge those 20 years of work from that business and the 20 years of work from the lawyers who have done it voluntarily by coming with a sensible and practical solution to those problems about how to rate Māori land fairly.I'll turn to my points about how councils might reasonably expect to be able to now collect more rates from Māori land under the present legislation which is proposed. The problem here is that Māori land with no ownership structure is not open to rates that rates cannot be collected in those structures and so what this bill does is provide a practical solution for Māori land owners to come together and say What was in the past is done. We will now move forward. We will contribute in the way that all other landowners do."My second point about why is this just Māori land: now the member from Tauranga would have us believe that this is a race-based policy. Look he's a lawyer. He understands that general land and Māori land are very different creatures in our legislation that Māori land sets out specific criteria about who can own it how it can be owned and how it can be used. Those are the reasons why we need special rating laws which set out how local councils should grapple with that special nature of that land not because it is owned by Māori. There's no suggestion on this side of the House that Māori land owners who own general land should have any special treatment.The third point I want to make just briefly is whether councils can do this already. I want to quote the well-known Wellington lawyer who is an advocate for local authorities on rating issues here Mr Jonathan Salter. He said "the general perception amongst local authorities about the rating of Māori land is that it is an issue which lives in the 'too hard' basket. Many local authorities now acknowledge the sensitivity of rating Māori land in the context of the Treaty of Waitangi but find the statutory provisions in Part xiii of the Rating Powers Act extremely difficult to implement in practice … the local authorities which appear to have achieved the greatest degree of success are those which have established sound liaison and goodwill with the Māori in their districts." I quote Mr Salter because this House needs to give clear direction for how local authorities are meant to implement those rules and it's important for lawyers to be able to give clear advice both to local authorities and to Māori land owners about how those rates will be affected.It's a mess now for local authority. We're doing no favours under the current system by providing so much discretion to local authorities that they simply do not know how to rate Māori land fairly and in a way which will allow them to collect more rates in future. That is why I'm so proud to commend this bill to the House and to honour Professor Palmer and the work of the Mangatū Incorporation."