Luxon ChristopherCHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): Look I just want to say thank you to the Minister for answering the questions as we've been having them bringing them forward I think in good intent and good spirit. It's also great to see Louisa Wall back in the House again because she's been the only member on the other side actually taking a call and engaging with us as we've been wrestling with these questions. But I guess you know as we reflect on what is really the guts of this bill as we look to repeal these 14 provisions under clause 7 I guess what is sad is that we've never really kind of had the first-principles conversation as to why Māori wards are here in the first place and we've never really had a chance to discuss and debate how local government should actually build their relationship with iwi hapū and why we think local wards are the best way to do that. The Minister just in her remarks before talked about representation but really the focus is under legislation under the Treaty realising that local government and iwi hapū have obligations with and to each other. I guess the question that I'd really appreciate the Minister's perspective on given her own lived experience and her own experience of where she's come from is—fundamentally the outcome here is a deepening of relationship and partnership between iwi hapū and local government. That's got to be the goal. That's got to be what the result has to be. That's what the end game is about. That's actually the outcome we're interested in here: each and every year that we see an improving and deepening relationship between the Crown at a central government level local government with iwi hapū in their area. The question I have for the Minister is sort of—we're presuming that the answer is in fact a Māori ward; that the Māori ward is the best mechanism by which we can deliver that outcome which is our obligations under the Treaty and I guess we're sort of dictating the means rather than the outcome as a consequence. I can understand it because if you go back to 2002 when the legislation was created and when this 5 percent trigger was actually put in it was really probably designed so that Māori in an area could actually trigger a petition to be able to put a proposition together to get the Māori ward. There's been a whole bunch of other conversation. But here fast-forward 20 years on and I think we're actually in quite a different and better place. Many of the submitters that we spoke to in the Māori Affairs Committee for the short time that we had them there they all raised this issue around proportional representation—that essentially Māori were now present in local government in proportion to the total population. I think that's really fantastic because that means that fundamentally that has changed a lot from when this legislation was first written in 2002. Māori were typically 4 percent of the total population of the 1600 elected local government members that we have and today that's very different. It's proportionally aligned. So the question I have is that we never really got to hear the viewpoints in any of the submissions from iwi and hapū around how Māori wards are actually fundamentally addressing this issue of building and deepening the relationship that each side has under the Treaty. I think what we're saying is Māori wards may be about addressing matters of representation; albeit if it's just about representation then that's already being achieved as we're seeing in this House and we're seeing in local government where people are getting there because of the content of their character not because of the colour of their skin. They're getting there fundamentally because they are equal and that's a fantastic thing. That's a positive thing that's happening. So representation is actually being achieved. But now we're saying—and then when you go talk to some iwi and hapū and we've had some examples here on the West Coast we've had some examples in Christchurch the relationship with Ngāi Tahu in particular they are saying that we can deliver the strategic goals of a deepening and better partnering with Māori through our Treaty obligations by having strategic relationships as iwi hapū with councils rather than actually setting up Māori wards that deliver it. When you look at article 2 of the Treaty it actually says—it's really about making sure that Māori have decisions over resources and taonga and article 3 is really about how obligations owed to New Zealand citizens are owed equally to Māori. None of those articles talk about Māori wards as the means by which you achieve that and we just presume that that mechanic—which might have been relevant in 2002; I don't think is relevant in 2021. I think that's the question that we fundamentally need to ask. None of these articles actually put Māori wards and state that Māori wards is the means by which you deliver those obligations. I'm just interested in the Minister's view around—surely a strategic relationship with iwi and hapū that deepens each and every year that really delivers on articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty obligations that we have with each other is a much better thing than trying to force forward a tactical mechanic of a Māori ward to deliver that end or that outcome. That's the bit that fundamentally I don't know. As we think about seriously repealing 14 provisions under clause 7 the question I have is—that's the big strategic question here right? This is what we want to see in this country. We talked about reconciling binary views. That's the important thing.