Ririnui Mita: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Ririnui Mita: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6410] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am not saying that I should get a call before my colleague but the Minister got three calls in succession. I can understand that. I know that the rules say he can have up to four I think. But I think it is a wee bit on the nose that the Minister got three calls in a row and little old poor me gets only one halfway through— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to the member that whether he is little poor old or whatever it is is irrelevant. All members stand before the Chair as equals. The member himself has had three calls in this debate and when I had a flick down my record I saw that the Hon Mita Ririnui has had none. The House has a fine tradition of giving new speakers priority over those who have had several calls. That is the tradition. The final point I make to the member is that the right to decide who has the call rests with the Chair the Chair alone and it is undisputed. As in football I have never yet seen a decision by the ref overturned by a good argument. I make the point to the member that he will never see a point of order in this House overturn a call so do not make that point again. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think you did not hear me right. I was not disputing the fact that Mita Ririnui was given the call; I did not say that I should be before him. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I do not want to prolong this but I say to the member that he has been here long enough. If the member takes a point of order on the calls he is by implication clearly challenging the Chairperson’s decision. There can be no other reason for doing it. I called Mita Ririnui and I explained to the member so that the member got some of my thinking as to why I did that. I restate the point that the member has had three calls in this debate and Mita Ririnui has had none. I think it is only fair that members who have not had a call in this debate should have one. That is the end of the matter; I do not want any more points of order on this. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson for that fine ruling. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Members are not supposed to refer back to the Chair’s rulings. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: Pardon me. I actually want to thank the Hon Tau Henare for his contribution to the debate. There was not much about his speech that I agreed with but I think one point he made he was actually quite accurate on which was his views on the single transferable vote (STV) system. The member made the point that regardless of the fact that STV is adopted in our local district health board elections not one Maori has been elected through that process. That needs to be pointed out in the Committee. In the first round of district health board elections no Maori were elected and I think in the last round maybe one or two were elected. That is not a very good average. I thank the Hon Tau Henare also for his recall of the history of Maori representation in Parliament. I was hoping he would talk about the journey he spoke about when he took a call last night. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Well I didn’t get the call did I? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: Well the member had plenty of time to touch on the matter but he never took the opportunity. The member talked about taking the people of Auckland—1.25 million people—on a journey. They had not signed up or bought tickets to go on the journey but they would have been dragged along anyway. Of those people going on the journey 135000 happened to be Maori but the journey had no destination. The member would not tell us the destination. It is no wonder that there are issues around Maori representation on the Auckland super-city council. 
I have a lot of respect for the member. He was a very fine Minister of Maori Affairs; he certainly knew his job. However he should be consistent in his views. He expressed a very strong view against the Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide. I wondered to myself what it is about the word “Rodney” that sends fear through the National Government. Every time Rodney makes a statement the Government wants to comply. When Rodney District Council protested about the northern boundaries the Government listened. National members spent so many hours in the Chamber last night trying to convince themselves that they listened throughout this whole process. The problem is that they cannot convince the people of Auckland of that. The people of Auckland are waiting for the Minister of Local Government to front up and tell them why he did not listen to them. 
I heard a number of National speakers in the Chamber last night make the point that the Government listened. The only person who made some relevant points around the consultation process over the last few months was the Hon Tau Henare. But he was given an impossible mission. It was his responsibility to go out take charge and facilitate a process to hear submissions from Maori communities. He did a very good job a very fine job and a very thorough job but National did not tell him that it did not really matter because the decision had been made. So Tau Henare launched an attack on the Minister of Local Government—and rightly so. I know he has not changed his mind but he is a loyal member and he has signed up to the arrangements that the Government has entered into with the ACT Party. That being the case the Hon Tau Henare will live by the decision of the Government. 
I wonder about the so-called process the Government adopted in terms of the Auckland Council. According to the Government the process does not wander far from the process we used in respect of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council issues on Maori representation. The consultation process on that matter was thorough. It actually took 9 years not 9 months. The Bay of Plenty councillors travelled to every corner of the electorate and even contracted a retired District Court judge Peter Trapski to conduct the hearings. To cut a long story short the report back to the council recommended the establishment of a Maori constituency based on the same formula for the selection of wards as that adopted by central government for determining the number of Maori seats in Parliament. Following a very long debate at the local level for the Bay of Plenty and Waiariki the bill covered the tribal confederations of Te Arawa Mataatua parts of Tainui Horouta and probably even further than that. 
Something like 300 hapu were involved in the consultation rounds. That is a pretty overwhelming statistic when one thinks about it. As a result of that I as the member for Waiariki at the time introduced the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Bill to the House. It was then that we became aware of the anti-Maori views of the Minister of Local Government the Hon Rodney Hide. I heard his speech this morning—he took three calls—and I will go back to the  
Hansard 
 later on today because what he said today is exactly what he said then. He is fundamentally ideologically opposed to Maori representation at any level. I wonder what it is about his stance on Maori representation that has not sunk in for the Maori members of the National Government. I wonder what it is about his position on Maori representation that has not sunk into the minds of the Maori Party members. I say to my whanaunga from Ngati Rangiwewehi Te Arawa that this is an opportunity for that member to stand up in this House and challenge the Government and the Minister of Local Government. He should tell the Government what the people of Waiariki think about the actions and decisions of the Minister of Local Government. 
I challenge the member for Waiariki because during my term as the member for Waiariki he challenged me many times; I did not mind that. He challenged me on my stand on the foreshore and seabed issue. I chose not to run away; I chose to stay and fight the fight. I chose to take on the hard stuff not like others who refuse to stay and fight. I say to the member for Waiariki that this is the opportunity and I will give him all the help he requires because he will need it. 
I also heard the Minister of Local Government say he had a number of meetings with the Minister of Maori Affairs. What he said about that meeting and what the Minister of Maori Affairs said publicly varied quite considerably. I wonder whether the Minister of Maori Affairs should have stayed at home and sent the member for Waiariki instead because the outcome might have been different and it might have been better. To accompany him he should have taken the member for Tai Tokerau Hone Harawira. I know that Rodney Hide would not have patronised those two members. He would not have redefined their mana-enhancing philosophy. That is exactly what the Minister of Local Government did in respect of the Auckland legislation. He rolled them. He convinced them that what he was about to do was good for them. He told them that in terms of Maori representation they are equal to everybody else. Well the statistics say otherwise. What is it about the matter that he does not understand? 
Tau Henare said that STV has never produced strong Maori representation—or any Maori representation at all. I got the impression that he was saying he was still in favour of designated Maori seats. He gave no other example apart from STV and his stand on the Minister’s decision on Maori seats seems to be well positioned. I wish he would get up in the House and reiterate that. I know that my whanaunga from Ngati Tuwharetoa the Hon Georgina te Heuheu is not happy with this. She is very unhappy with this. I have heard her take a number of calls in the Parliament over the last few weeks and indirectly oppose the Government’s stand on Maori representation for Auckland City. I know that on the marae 2 weeks ago she again indirectly opposed the Government’s decision. What is it about my whanaunga from Ngati Awa that prevents them from taking the same stand getting up in the House and taking a call like the rest of us and expressing honest opinions about the lack of consideration for Maori representation? 
It is interesting that during the Bay Of Plenty Regional Council consultation rounds the number of submissions made was I understand 278 and in the electorate there were 287. The difference here is that probably about 1 percent were opposed from the normal groups.