Quinn Paul: Maori Trustee Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Quinn Paul: Maori Trustee Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2765] 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Maori Trustee Amendment Bill during the Committee stage and I am sure my friends and colleagues from the Opposition will be pleased to know that I intend taking a number of calls on it. There is a lot to share with them and for them to understand and come to grips with. 
But I want to start by reflecting on one statement that my friend and colleague Master Hipkins has reiterated throughout this evening in respect of the previous bill—that this is a Labour bill that National is bringing forward. The truth of the matter is that he is right but what he has not said is that Labour was unable to get things done. It has been left to the great National Government that we are becoming to clean up and clear the slate. This bill is a classic example. Let me if I may take a moment of the Committee’s time and read from the select committee report: “Because it is desirable that changes to establish the Maori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation be passed into legislation before the close of this Parliament we resolved that splitting the bill along these lines was prudent.” In recognition of trying to get this bill through the previous Parliament Labour split the bill but it still could not deliver. 
The Opposition might remind us from time to time that when this great National Government was in Opposition we opposed this bill. That is correct as well. But the reason National opposed the bill was as my honourable colleague the previous speaker Nanaia Mahuta has pointed out that this was part of a much larger bill commonly referred to as the Maori Trustee and Maori Development Amendment Bill. In fact because of the great stewardship and leadership shown by the select committee members who considered this bill which I note was made up of a majority of members who are now Government members they were able to bring some focus and some common sense to the reality of “let’s just deal with the Maori Trustee aspects of this”. 
We were opposed because on the one hand there was a need to deal with the specific issues around the Maori Trustee and the Maori Trust Office but the then Government also on the other hand tried to create this monolith Maori Development Corporation to which it was going to appoint a whole lot of ministerial cronies and create this huge slush fund for them to spend. We opposed that because time and time again we have had reference made to political appointments. My learned friends on the Opposition benches are past masters and colleagues of this particular skill. We were opposed to that and through our great vision and drive and the majority we had on the select committee we were able to separate it out and create a focused bill to deal specifically with the issues confronting the Maori Trust Office. 
As we work our way through this bill I think it will provide an excellent opportunity to focus on the work that the Maori Trust Office does and needs to do because there are a number of aspects in this bill that will drag the office and the Maori Trustee into the 21st century. For instance there are clauses in the bill that deal with the fact that the Maori Trustee no longer has to just sign cheques and cheques only but will be able to use other means of efficient distribution and so on.