SpeechJOANNE HAYES (National): Thank you Madam Speaker and I'm very privileged to stand and speak on Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession Dispute Resolution and Related Matters) Amendment Bill in the second reading and I thank the Minister for Māori Development for her comprehensive speech just then around what the bill is set up to do.So although this side is going to be supporting the bill through to the committee stage I just was a little bit disappointed that a hand was not reached out to this side of the House from the Government benches for us to work together on a more comprehensive Te Ture Whenua Māori bill something that could pull together all the other bills that are coming through the House. It would come through the select committee and something that would be very comprehensive very similar to the one that was put forward by the last Government and Māori Party in coalition because it covered many many areas. I feel that this particular bill has taken little bits out of there and put it into this succession bill and I think that you know we could have actually done a really excellent job on this bill by bringing together a comprehensive Te Ture Whenua Māori bill. I think that you know the opportunity has been missed and we're going to have a whole lot of other little bills that will end up making it up. It'll be quite fragmented when it should all be singing out of the same—let's say—amendment bill book sheet. So I just have some comments around some parts of the bill that I found to be—you know could be quite contentious because we've had issues of this in our whānau and these are the new rules on succession—succession from whāngai. So a few years ago in our whānau we had a whāngai who wanted to succeed to land—to our Māori land that belonged to our whānau—saying that he was a whāngai. We went back through the history books and our whakapapa to find out just whereabouts this whāngai came in and who did we know in the whānau—and we pulled together groups of kaumātua to find out whether or not this person had a legal right or a right within the whānau to claim whāngai status for land and his claim to our whānau land. It caused big big ructions because not only could he succeed to our lands as a whānau he could also succeed to his mother's land who wasn't one of his whānau. And even the person that he said was one of our whānau actually was another whāngai. So you see how the whole whāngai system kind of goes from there—it jumps and jumps and jumps—and we ended up having to take this to the Māori Land Court and have a debate with the Māori Land Court on his status as whāngai since our kuia and kaumātua could not hand on heart say that this particular man was a true whāngai of our whānau. I think that when it comes to succession of whāngai there is a gap within this bill that we will most probably debate—I would 100 percent say that we will debate or I'll debate it in the committee of the whole House—to tighten that area up because as children of our parents and our grandparents we have a mother and a father that we can succeed to on their lands; so mine is Ngāti Porou and on my mother's side it's Whanganui Awa and Rangitāne in the Wairarapa. But if I was a whāngai I also have a right through blood through blood to also succeed to my birth parents' lands as well.So that to me is an unfair advantage. And so I think that loop around whāngai needs to tighten down a bit more so there is no unfair advantage when it comes to whāngai. All of this has been driven by a big row that happened within our whānau around whāngai and whāngai status. And when they say that you know it will be the kaumātua or the iwi or the hapū that will determine who was the whāngai if that doesn't happen it could go to the Māori Land Court and they could make that decision. So what if they as happened with our whānau made a decision and it was not actually supported within the kuia and the kaumātua of our family? So in our family our decisions as kaumātua and kuia—they were actually lost and the Māori Land Court didn't even listen to them. So I just have a little bit of concern around that and I had been talking to my colleagues on this side of the House about that and said I am going to bring it up in the committee of the whole House.The other area around landlocked lands: now we talked about this at the select committee and especially one particular area—and there must have been thousands of hectares of land Māori land landlocked land in this country—but one particular area of note was Mōkai Pātea which is Taihape. They have lands that sit in behind Ngamatea Station—and I can't remember the other station on the other side—but they are landlocked and in here it talks about reasonable access and it does define it but at the end of the day it will actually be determined by the actual farm owners in the front. Will they give access? Will they give access through reasonable access? What is that? They will interpret that because legislation is all very well but at the end of the day when it comes to enactment on the ground it is all about interpretation.Landowners at the front of these landlocked lands will take that interpretation to the very nth. No matter what the clauses are in the bill they will take it to the very nth. I have seen it. I've been on Ngamatea Station. I've looked across into the Mōkai Pātea lands—they have beautiful bushlands in there—and the only way that they can get in there to actually have economic development and that's hunting is by helicopter. Not everybody not every farmer can afford a helicopter ride into their landlocked lands. So I think that needed to be tightened up a bit more around the road access with those owners at the front of those landlocked lands. So I think we need to tighten that down a bit I believe to make this bill more meaningful to whānau to hapū to iwi who are owners of landlocked lands. There is a whole piece of legislation around what is a landlocked land who can have it? Can you prove ahi kā etc. etc.? And that is fine that is fine. But my biggest concern is: will those owners at the front of the landlocked lands give access based on reasonable access? So those are just a couple of areas of this bill that I have had concerns about and will look forward to having that debate around especially when we look at lands that actually are ripe for forestry which is where New Zealand First is at. Landlocked lands cannot be put into forestry if they can't get access to it. Even if they fly in all of the plants and plant them you've still got to get those logs out. The most effective way of doing that is to truck them out; and there are jobs as well. So as I said we are going to support this bill right through but I just want some of the issues that I have outlined here today debated in the committee of the whole House. I think that I was disappointed we weren't brought on board with the Minister—a hand out to say Come on board let's have a bit of a kōrero about this what is it going to look like?" because some of the things in this bill actually come out of the bill that we had in the last sitting and because it is so comprehensive and covers every single aspect of Te Ture Whenua right through to the end and doesn't leave any stone unturned. So as I said at the start of my contribution today we support this bill. We want to see whānau and hapū and iwi thrive on their lands. We want to see them build on their lands and grow their economy on their lands. We just want to make sure that the bill that is being presented to them is a bill that is strong it has very few—if not no—gaps in it and that everybody benefits from it from within the whānau. Thank you Madam Speaker."