Kerekere ElizabethDr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Talofa ni. Manuia le taeao. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this omnibus Māori Purposes Bill. Thank you to the handful who submitted to the Māori Affairs Committee and to the Minister for Māori Development and his officials for their work.As we stated in the first reading the Greens support this bill in the hope that these changes will indeed contribute to Māori wellbeing and development by providing these entities with greater autonomy in decision making addressing previous technical issues and reducing the administrative compliance. We particularly support bills which enable iwi whānau and hapū to get on with their responsibilities to each other and to the whenua the moana the maunga and the awa that they are responsible for. Whether they own that or not they have that kaitiakitanga and preferably we'd like them to get on with that with a minimum of oversight compliance and Government interference.We note the Ruapuha Uekaha Hapū Trust provided the most substantive submission to the Māori Affairs Committee. As stated in their submission amending Te Ture Whenua Maori Act of 1993 will ensure that the trust continues as an ahu whenua trust where the beneficiaries of all descendants of the 22 original owners—but also at the same time account for the beneficial owners of the Hauturu East 8 who have a reversionary interest. Because there's no other ahu whenua trust or even post-settlement governance entity that has this kind of set-up that are in this position the trust is rightly concerned that this will be in jeopardy if this bill does not go ahead. So we note their concerns that Hauturu East 8 could not otherwise be returned to and otherwise benefit the hapū of Ruapuha and Uekaha and we agree that that would be a fundamental breach of the Wai 51 settlement.For the trust of the very beautiful Rotoaira—it's a very special place to one of my nannies—amending the Māori Purposes Act will provide more autonomy and flexibility in managing their lake and their fisheries. We appreciate that the trustees of Motuopuhi Māori Reservation are able to visit without a purpose. We note that they're still expected to get a permit if they actually want to fish. I'm just saying knowing some of my nannies and my pakeke good luck with that—once they're there they're probably going to do whatever they like.As my colleagues have stated amending the Maori Trust Boards Act will provide for among other things the use of electronic voting. Can someone put up a bill that just updates all the electronic voting in all our legislation so we don't have to do this in such a piecemeal way? This is really really important. This is something whereby more people will be able to take part in this process. We know that people who are involved in our trust boards and lots of our iwi things don't always live in the place where they are taking part in that work. I hope it also enables the Government to think more broadly about other places where we could do electronic voting—I'm just going to put it out there about local government elections; we might have higher take-up of the opportunity.Amending the Maori Community Development Act will also mean that district Māori councils can give their audited accounts to the New Zealand Māori Council instead of the chief executive of Te Puni Kōkiri who I imagine has better things and more appropriate things to do with their time. I also wonder if there are still things like this embedded in different legislation which mean that our chief executives of different organisations are having to deal with this kind of micromanagement. Is it just our Māori organisations or does this occur in other places?Appropriate decision-making is a cornerstone of the Greens charter so the views of the organisations impacted by all of these little changes are really important to us. We understand that most of them are in support. We're surprised to hear though that of the ones—Lake Rotoaira trust Ruapuha Uekaha Hapū Trust Aorangi Hauraki Tūwharetoa Whakatōhea Tauranga Moana Wairoa Waikaremoana Māori Trust Board and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua are all good with all of this but we're surprised to hear that Te Tai Tokerau Māori Trust Board has still not been in contact. I understand from the report from the select committee that they're taking this to mean—it doesn't necessarily mean it's a negative; they just have not heard from them. So that concerns me. I hope that trust is doing OK and that they have capacity for the rest of their work.In conclusion given the support of all of those affected—almost all—we commend this sensible albeit incremental omnibus bill to the House. Kia ora.