Jones Shane: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11505] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. Earlier this evening we heard from Mr Wayne Mapp. He came back into the House wiping the sweat from his brow and we can rest assured it was not from any toil in his ministerial duties; it was from wandering around Takapuna and Northcote on the other side of the Auckland Harbour Bridge as he has become the cheerleader for John Banks. He has not been reduced to delivering pamphlets or handouts about the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill but his speech this evening touched on the issue of Maori seats. 
Before I get to that however I must speak and register a protest on behalf of the insect community. Unfortunately Cam Calder talked about the huhu grub an esteemed member of the insect community getting lost on a green tree or a green log. Quite apart from his obvious ignorance about insects his speech reflected far too much ingestion of the word and the meaning of “green”. He not only attempted murder on the bill; I have to support what Phil Twyford said: not once did he actually talk about the provisions of the bill. I can only imagine he has gone on to develop into whatever happens to a chrysalis that has been polluted by the predictable ideology that riddles this bill and by whatever other inputs that might pass for perfume in the animal kingdom that have been visited upon him. 
Labour actually did want to see Maori seats. Admittedly there is debate in Maoridom: should the seats be on the basis of mana whenua on the basis of the actual tribes that originally belonged in the Tamaki-makau-rau area stretching up to the Kaipara or should they replicate what we have in Parliament? That is a very difficult issue to resolve because on one hand we have notions of custom and intergenerational entitlements that are rooted in kinship and on the other hand we have the democratic franchise which ought to be colour-blind. In our country however we have married the democratic franchise to our tradition of respecting indigeneity. The Maori seats in this House enable Maori to play a key role in the House. The Minister of Local Government had the opportunity to blend that tradition into what has become the super-city. 
An error was made in the planning and the strategy of the Minister of Maori Affairs. Once the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance had reported back that there should be two Maori seats and a mana whenua seat he unwisely described that as being too timid and too weak to be an accurate reflection of Maori presence in Tamaki-makau-rau or Maori input and that empowered the arm of Mr Hide to rule Maori seats out altogether. So it is not entirely Mr Hide’s fault. It is actually a fault of strategy and an exaggeration of the relevance and quite frankly the leverage that the Maori Party thought it had. 
But at the end of the day the Prime Minister had an opportunity to graft something into the super-city legislation that would have shown that Auckland is a distinctive Pacific-based metropolis that it is proud of our founding document and that it is proud of the distinctive contribution that Maori make to that area and to the city. However it did not happen. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.