Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak in the first reading of this bill and probably the last. But I want to congratulate Mr Mooney a new member to this House and I was initially very impressed when I saw 393 pages full of a member's bill had landed into the Bills Office but on closer inspection this was just a copy and paste of a bill which did not follow the passage through this House. It was effectively removed by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and for very good reason.As has been outlined by my colleagues on the issue of Māori land I'm sure the whole House agrees that we want to ensure that Māori land can reach its optimal production value and have benefits that can accrue back to hapū owners and regions so it's very important. But there is a long whakapapa to Māori land especially Māori land legislation. The 1993 Act as Mr Coffey mentioned was some 20 years in the making. So there is a lot of policy development and a lot of consultation just in terms of the very nature of he taonga tuku iho that is Māori land.As we know the history of our country is set out in every Treaty settlement bill that comes through this House. It talks about the modus operandi of which the Native Land Court or the Māori Land Court was a big part at the time which actually helped divest and take land away from Māori so much so that as Mr Mooney mentioned there's only what about 5 percent if that of the total land mass of Aotearoa left which is te ture whenua Māori.So this issue needs to be looked at very carefully. Policy development and consultation with Māori has to be right from page one not from just putting forward a 393-page bill on a members' day and I'll give a case in point. We've already dealt with certain parts of this bill as has been mentioned with the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. We did it in stages. We took targeted amendments to ensure that we followed a proper process and proper policy development to ensure that we could improve certain aspects. So if I look at this bill I think it still contains Part 7 and that's already been dealt with by a separate piece of legislation around the administration of estates. Likewise the rating of whenua Māori in Part 16 has already been dealt with. We've already passed legislation through this House dealing with these specific issues. So it's not fit for purpose. I think better effort should be done in terms of proper consultation and policy development. I remember when this came through the House. There was an uproar from Māoridom in terms of the pace and the far-reaching implications of the provisions of this bill and so it was rightly discontinued. But a more staged approach of more targeted reforms which we are doing as a Government is the preferred way. There are a lot of successful examples of Māori land interests that are doing very well. Passing a law is not necessarily the panacea to ensuring that there are optimal economic benefits accruing from Māori land. Quite simply a hillside remains a hillside; marginal land remains marginal land. But there are examples such as the Tuaropaki Trust in Mōkai up in Taupō District—over $1 billion in an ahu whenua trust operates under te ture whenua Māori law. We can look at all the host of Māori incorporations as well that are doing very well around the country also operating under the existing law and also doing very well.In terms of the fragmentation yes fragmentation is an issue. But it's long been provisioned that we can create trusts—whānau trusts—to group up those interests so it's not as if there's this uncontrollable fragmentation that takes place. We can go to the Māori Land Court and deal with those issues. So this isn't fit for purpose but I acknowledge Mr Mooney for bringing it to the House and yes I'm sure you might have better luck with another piece of legislation. I commend this—I don't commend this bill sorry. Oh rewind—rewind! We oppose this bill. Aroha mai.