Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I am happy to take a call on Part 5 of this bill. I just want to turn my comments to new section 37 inserted by clause 188 and I particularly raise the issue in new section 37A about whether it is desirable to prepare exclusive economic zone (EEZ) policy statements. The statement here says that the Minister may have regard to—" and we list a number of things that he should have regard to: "(a) the actual or potential effects of the use development or protection of natural resources: (b) New Zealand's obligations under any international conventions… (c) the matters in subpart 2 of Part 1: (d) any other relevant matter." Then we go on to new section 37B. I want to note this because I want to ask the Minister a question in terms of his consistency of terminology. New section 37B states: "Before issuing an EEZ policy statement the Minister must—(a) notify the public iwi authorities regional councils and persons …". I guess the question I want to raise as was provided by submitters is: was the guarantee of the Treaty rights to iwi as guaranteed under the Māori Fisheries Settlement Act and how settled iwi in terms of fisheries—just to give a bit of context to the Committee with a lot of fishery-settled iwi you have both your inshore and your outshore zones that you can fish. I suspect that both Ngāi Tahu and Waikato see the value in EEZ policy statements as an essential element of planning but it raises the question of how under this particular part of the bill Minister Smith can guarantee that rights as conferred on iwi are protected particularly if the Minister's own statement says that all he has to do is notify iwi. That then raises my earlier point around consistency of terms because in this other section of the bill where we talk about the Mana Whakahono a Rohe that particular clause's amendment talks about iwi being able to participate at the table. Yet when it comes to the EEZ policy statements it appears in the Minister's own bill that all we need to do is notify iwi. Maybe he can clarify whether I am misreading that iwi have a much higher role to aid and abet the Minister to make sure that there are not any further breaches as raised in his own departmental report to ensure that historic claims are not further breached under this clause. So that was my first question to the Minister.I also wanted to note that of the nine submitters under this particular section in Part 5 including environmental NGOs and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu—again concerns were raised about the discretionary powers of the Minister to establish a process to develop these policy statements. I guess they were raising their concerns in terms of ensuring that iwi authorities' views particularly were catered for in the process that the Minister is obviously going to adopt. So the question I again will put to the Minister is what guarantees—when I look at the clauses in this particular section we are talking about notification but in other parts of the bill in terms of the Mana Whakahono a Rohe there is a much more active engagement at the planning stage with iwi. It does not seem to be the same in this particular section unless I am missing it somewhere in this particular part. I really would want some guarantees from the Minister that iwi rights and interests in terms of their fishing rights will not be impacted adversely through this part of the bill. Kia ora Minister."