Korako Nuk: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKorako Nuk: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8336. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NUK KORAKO (National): Ā tēnā anō koe e Te Mana Whakawā. E hiahia ana ahau ki te tautoko i te kaikōrero o mua e Peeni e mihi atu![And thank you once again Mr Assistant Speaker. I would like to endorse the previous speaker; well done Peeni!]It gives me great pleasure and honour to be able to speak to the third reading of the Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill as a member of this Government and also as chair of the Māori Affairs Committee.I would like to start by mentioning three milestones. One is that this year we are celebrating the 175th anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We are also looking at the 79th year of the Waitangi National Trust Board Act. We are also looking—this is the third milestone—at the fact that it is 9 years since we started this review of the Act. It has also been a little frustrating because we have been in the House over the last 3 or 4 weeks waiting for this final reading—the third reading of this bill—and so finally we come almost hopefully to the end of the journey. But in doing that it has taken some time so I would like to take my time here to just reiterate a number of the important parts of this bill and the work that a number of Māori Affairs Committees undertook to get it to this point.The Waitangi National Trust Board is the body entrusted with caring for one of the most important single locations in our country: the Treaty grounds at Waitangi. The important heritage status of this place this birthplace of our nation is recognised in law through the establishment of the trust board to administer and act as guardian of these grounds. The trust is self-funded and maintains the Treaty grounds without cost—without cost—to the people of New Zealand. But a need was identified over 9 years ago to strengthen the financial viability and governance structure of the trust.What the most significant change in this bill does is it structures the trust. Currently there is a risk that the perception of a conflict of interest could arise between the constitutional roles of the Governor-General the Prime Minister the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Māori Development and their roles as ex officio members of the trust. However it is also important that the relationship between the Crown and the Waitangi National Trust Board be maintained and that is a very very important point.This bill does a good job of resolving this issue. It removes the ex officio members from the trust board but it continues their involvement with the trust through the appointment of the Governor-General as patron of the trust and the establishment of a Crown representative group to foster good relations and share information with the board. This is made up of the Prime Minister the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and the Minister for Māori Development. In addition there are two members of Parliament who will be appointed as full members of the board: one representing the Government and the other representing the Opposition.The Māori Affairs Committee saw an opportunity also to make a further correction to that representation on the board. Currently the trust board includes three members to represent three non-Māori families but only one member to represent four Māori families. Our colleague Pita Paraone is currently the representative for those four Māori families but as a result of the changes made at the select committee he will be replaced by four representatives when his current term ends. I am sure that Pita will enjoy being able to say he was so valuable he had to be replaced by four people. But in all seriousness we feel that this was a change that was very important and that it was important to make that change now while we had the opportunity and that is what we have done.This bill makes a number of other changes to modernise the provisions for the Waitangi National Trust Board such as providing term limits for representative members and we also have given the board general powers to do anything a natural person would do. This will allow the board to make better use of its commercial opportunities by doing things like borrowing money or managing forestry on its own land. The trust board takes care of the Treaty grounds at no costto the taxpayer as I said before and these changes will allow it to continue to do so.I want to acknowledge the members of the Waitangi National Trust Board for the work that they do for the care of one of our most important historic sites. I also acknowledge my fellow members of the Māori Affairs Committee for the work that they put in to consider this bill. There was a lot of work that was done. I also want to acknowledge the honourable Minister Maggie Barry and the input that she had our officials also and also a former chair the Hon Tau Henare because as I said this bill has been going for some time.Finally I acknowledge the earlier speaker Peeni Henare as I said at the beginning but I want to pay tribute once more to his father the late Ērima Hēnare who served this country and his people on many other boards and was a tireless advocate for Te Reo Māori. This is a legacy organisation.My final acknowledgment here is that I sincerely want to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.