te Heuheu Georgina: Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
te Heuheu Georgina: Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13967] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the first reading of the Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) which the Minister moved in the House this afternoon. As the Minister quite rightly said omnibus legislation deals with matters that are largely technical in nature. He has outlined proposals to amend various Acts. The amendments to the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board Act the Maori Trust Boards Act the Treaty of Waitangi Act and Te Ture Whenua Maori Act are largely technical in nature. They are aimed at increasing administrative efficiency and at tidying up matters of a technical nature that require tidying up. In that sense the changes in this bill are appropriate. They make sense and National supports them.  
That is why though we were quite shocked to find when the Minister first briefed us on this bill that he had included major changes to the Maori Trustee Act 1953 in it. We thought the Minister had tried to sneak major changes—after so-called consultation but not necessarily consultation with the right people—into a bill that should largely meet with the agreement of the Opposition. Those changes are contentious in nature. In fact just recently I have had inquiries about the changes he proposes to make to the Maori Trustee Act in the Maori Trustee and Maori Development Amendment Bill which I notice is on the Order Paper but has been shifted quite a long way down it—and that is where it should be. The Minister consulted with us National members and he had included amendments to the Maori Trustee Act in the Maori Purposes Bill (No 2) that we said we did not accept were actually appropriate because they were contentious.  
I am pleased that the Rt Hon Winston Peters is in the House this afternoon because he will of course recall the contentious nature of the Maori Trustee Act. When he was the Minister of Maori Affairs under the National Government in 1990 he actually commissioned an inquiry into and a report on the Maori Trustee Act. That report was done by the solicitors Richard Charters and Annette Sykes and if I recall matters correctly they came up with some rather horrendous findings that suggested the Maori Trustee may be in debt to beneficiaries to the tune of millions of dollars.  
The Minister should really listen to this because he should actually take the Maori Trustee and Maori Development Amendment Bill off the Order Paper. It is inappropriate and it is contentious and he has not consulted the right people. The assets of that trust do not belong to all Maori. The owners of those trustee assets can be identified albeit a lot of them have passed on. But the descendants of those people can be identified and the bulk of those assets belong in the Waiariki and Aotea district Maori Land Court.  
As I say the Minister took that legislation those amendments out of this bill at our request. They are gone for the moment. So we accept that this bill before us is largely technical and we support it. We support the bill before us now.  
The Minister has outlined the reasons for the changes included in the bill. I will comment on only a couple of them. The technical nature of the bill is I think very well demonstrated by the change to the Maori Trust Boards Act 1955 that specifies a minimum voting age of 18 for Maori trust board elections as the Minister has explained. There is a difference right now between the minimum voting age for Maori trust boards and the minimum voting age for the mandated iwi organisations under the Maori Fisheries Act—one is 20 years and the other is 18 years and it makes sense to align them. That will be done and of course it should be done because the difference results in extra compliance costs which the various boards should not have to meet.  
One of the other changes reflects changes to the annual payment to be paid by the Crown to the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board. That brings the Act into line with a recent agreement between the Crown and the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board. Again that is necessary to give effect to recent agreements.  
I suppose the one area of this legislation that in a way could be contentious but is probably not in effect contentious concerns the changes that are proposed to amend the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 to increase the statutory cap on the membership of the Waitangi Tribunal from 16 to 20 and to restructure section 6 of the Act. The first of those changes is probably the more substantial change. The tribunal has been operating with that membership since 1987 I think. There were originally three members on the tribunal but that was extended to seven. When I was a member of the tribunal—and very proud to be so—there were seven members. In around 1987 the Government of the day took the starting point for claims to be heard back to 1840 and the membership was increased to 16. Given that last year this Parliament set a closing date of next year—2008—for the submission of claims to the Waitangi Tribunal and given that this Government is endeavouring to complete all settlements by the year 2020 in National’s view it makes sense to increase the membership in the way that is proposed in this bill today.  
I suggest that increasing the Waitangi Tribunal’s membership is one thing but I trust that the Government will also boost the funding of the Waitangi Tribunal to enable it to take advantage of that increase in membership. Given the Government’s record over the last 8 years of not properly funding the tribunal yet seeking for it to get going in its work there is no point in having additional members without having the financial resources needed to make sure that all 20 members are sitting regularly and can in fact sit like a normal court. That is one of the things National would give consideration to. This measure will only make sense and we will only get through the settlement of claims in a timely and durable way if the membership of the tribunal is given proper backing and support to enable it to sit regularly in order to clear the mountain of claims that still lie before it. I hope we do not have—as we do now—members not always being fully occupied: some members waiting to be appointed to a tribunal and some members not sitting regularly at all. That does not make sense when the tribunal is under a time limit of sorts. The Minister makes no mention at all that he sees the need to increase the funding of the tribunal. So as I say I hope this will not be a Clayton’s increase where we get more members but they sit around not hearing claims.  
In reality the tribunal has been poorly served under this administration. It has had to cancel hearing dates that it had scheduled—sometimes those scheduled for the beginning of the year get moved towards the end of the year. Urgent inquiries have necessitated changes to the tribunal’s timetable. We do not want to have any of that. As I say we are very supportive of the increase in membership but we want to see the Minister committed to ensuring that financial resources follow that membership increase. I know that would be hard for that Minister though actually this is not the Minister that the money comes through; it is a justice one. Who would that be? 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Barker. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: It is Rick Barker the Minister for Courts. He is going to get the money needed to support the tribunal’s new membership. So a good job for Parekura Horomia in the new year is to get on to Rick Barker chase him around make sure that he has put in a Budget bid for the next year and make sure that the tribunal members actually get to work sit on claims start to clear the logjam of claims and get these settlements out.  
One thing is absolutely certain: although some claimants are happy to move to direct negotiations other groups of claimants want to have their day in court. National recognises that. When we get into power next year we will make sure that the tribunal can meet deadlines and can move to get the settlement process under way in a much more robust matter than is currently the situation. 
Debate interrupted.