Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare huri noa ki aku hoa o tēnei Whare Pāremata tēnā koutou katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker and acknowledgments to you all my colleagues of this House throughout.]The Green Party will be abstaining on the Point England Development Enabling Bill and I will be highlighting exactly why we both cannot support this flawed legislation and also cannot oppose this bill. We cannot support this flawed bill because of the terrible process which has not taken the community with it. We acknowledge the valid concerns and pains of the community over the loss of their reserve lands and recreational space. We acknowledge the lack of good governance that sees legislation sidestep in this case the normal democratic processes. And in particular we take issue—huge issue—with this being merely an opportunity for Nick Smith to seem like he is finally doing something of substance to transform the current housing crisis and homelessness situation that we are facing when actually it is against a backdrop of ongoing shallow and failing policies that maintain the current status quo. We cannot support the bill for that reason as well. We cannot support the bill because we would have preferred a clearer guarantee under the legislation such as that of my colleague Eugenie Sage's amendment which would have seen the land in question retained by the Crown if Ngāti Paoa or Tāmaki iwi are unable to buy it. The amendment is to prevent it from being transferred to private developers; we would have preferred to see that guarantee.So it is fortunate for the Minister for Building and Construction that Ngāti Paoa could see that there was a small shot at doing a far better job than the Crown than this current Government has been able to prove itself to do. When it comes to doing good for their iwi and the community they saw a chance to take up this land. How fortunate for the Minister that they are willing to do that. It is a pretence that the Minister puts up of helping. It is a pretence because we have seen how much the Government's help has been worth to everybody in this country. It has not helped everyone in this country. So we cannot support it because this is shoddy work on behalf of the Crown and we are very clear about that.We also cannot oppose this bill. While we do not trust the Crown we do trust Ngāti Paoa to do the right thing by the community to do the right thing by the whenua Te Whanake. We trust Ngāti Paoa to do the right thing by the Ōmaru Awa. We trust Ngāti Paoa to do the right thing by the tūturiwhatu the dotterels. This is their last shot to rectify a small part of the huge injustice that was done by the Crown obtaining these ancestral lands. The ancestral land was taken in a way that was confirmed and affirmed as a Treaty breach. The breach is that in 1841 6000 acres—6000 acres—including Te Whanake the Point England Reserve were purchased by the Crown from Ngāti Paoa. That is all of the waterfront lands the coveted lands that today are raking in billions of dollars for developers. Those lands were sold for £100 in cash plus £258 in goods. That is £358 in 1840. If we scale that up—and here is my amazing math—to perhaps the £34000 that it would be worth today with inflation those pounds in today's New Zealand dollars would be $60000 for the 6000 acres. Even if I am out by 1000 percent—OK let us say that is $1 million today. That was the breach: the pittance next to the fact that the customary rights that were also extinguished through that Crown acquisition were never thought to be going to get extinguished through that sale. That is the Treaty breach. This is Ngāti Paoa's small final last shot at trying to make something out of something really quite small something that is not justice at all. But this is their shot and they are going to do the best they can because they are connected in a way that this Crown is not to that land to the community to the people to the birds to the river. While this is not strictly Tiriti legislation I acknowledge that Ngāti Paoa need this to go through to rectify a small part of their settlement and the injustice. I acknowledge that the letter from Chris Finlayson to Ngāti Paoa in October 2016 included a good-faith written agreement to that effect and we will want to hold the Crown to account on that good-faith agreement because the good-faith agreements in these Tiriti settlements have always put the burden on iwi to make sure that the Crown is held to account.I want to go back to the Minister's speech tonight when he talked about his dreams for the Ōmaru River. Why has it taken till now? I have stood on the banks of that river for 5 consecutive years to support the local community in trying to get something done to fix the mamae of that tupuna awa. That community effort has not been led just by local iwi and Ngāti Paoa uri; it has been the business community it has been non-Māori it has been New Zealanders of the community it has been scientists it has been school children. I have stood there for 5 years in a row—I did not see the Crown. Now for the good fortune of the Minister I know that Ngāti Paoa will do a better job because the Crown has not and this is why we cannot oppose the bill.It is 11.69 hectares of the 45.43 hectares that will be used for housing. It is still a small part of that overall reserve. I look forward to the day and I hope—and this is a bit of a hamuhamu plea to Haydn and Hau—that we get invited to the opening of the marae that is being proposed to be built on that land which will be for all of the community as marae have shown. What I do not want to see is yet another Auckland marae being used to fix up the homelessness crisis. I look forward to Nick Smith actually doing his job so that the marae in Auckland do not have to. Otherwise someone else from a different party should be that Minister. In closing I acknowledge the plans and the visions of Ngāti Paoa that they have for this land—that they have for this land. They are going to be left with the burden of trying to heal the community division and hurt that the Crown has created. I wish them the best of luck with doing that job—and they have to. They are not walking away. They are coming into the raruraru. So I want to send the Green Party's support for the work that they have got ahead of them including their incredible visions to do better with the land with the reserve with the river with the birds than this Crown has ever done—than local government has ever done. So I cannot wait for those. Mr Assistant Speaker I have outlined tonight the reasons why the Greens cannot support and cannot oppose this legislation and I thank you for putting the Greens on record for that. Thank you.