SpeechHARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. In rising to take this call this evening it's with measured trepidation considerable measured contemplation because that's just drawing and reflecting over the last three decades of my life of service and reflecting on the life of service of those who've gone before and those who are still here. So I make acknowledgment particularly to our Māori health sector pioneers: Dame Tariana Turia Meihana Durie and of course Professor Whatarangi Winiata. They are kaumātua who before my time here I've had the privilege of being alongside them in learning. And of interest this is about relationships. I am moving to the bill because the bill is specifically premised on the divide between Māori and non-Māori. And the recognition of the status of the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi. However in that recognition I'm mindful also that since 1840 there's been an evolution of what the nature the meaning the relevance and relationship that we as a nation of Aotearoa New Zealand we as the peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand have based fundamentally on that foundational document of our nation and our relationship as peoples.I said I rise to take this call with measured trepidation because I know that my people will judge me. But something also that I know is that my ancestors my tūpuna taught and passed on through the generations the importance of leadership and with that the importance of values and with that the importance of fearlessness in one's advocacy and representation. And that is a tool passed to me that was shaped and honed in my learnings and in my application as a lawyer and as an advocate: one of fearlessness.As is well-known I am a member of the National Party and the National Party does not support this bill. I concur with that and the reason I do is premised on my lifetime of experience reality and pragmatism. I am well aware over the decades of the findings and the recommendations that have come from many in the way of legal jurisprudence and jurisdictions of the Waitangi Tribunal but importantly the mātauranga and the whakaaro of my tūpuna and my ancestors. I draw on that also importantly because this bill is premised on a hope that this will address the disparity of health inequities in our nation for Māori. However Māori are not the only peoples of this nation of Aotearoa.My ancestry is as Māori. My ancestry is also as Pākehā. So I will just move back to the evolving nature and relationship of what the Treaty of Waitangi means. And I invite people in contemplation and further debate and I invite respectful debate irrespective of the differences that we may have in view and life experience—respectful debate without scorn or without laughing or without diminishing. The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill is a 94-page document. Well-intentioned aspirational as it is it is about recalibrating and resetting the framework of the delivery of health services within Aotearoa New Zealand to address and provide better health equities. I'm not convinced that it does.And I say that I'm not convinced because—this is going to undoubtedly be passed into law because the Opposition does not have the numbers—it will bear out in time to show that despite the good intentions it is not going to deliver the way that we hope and we aspire for it to do. Why do I say this? Back in 1998 along with my whanaunga Dame Tariana and her now deceased husband George we embarked on setting about establishing the first Māori health provider in Aotearoa New Zealand: Te Oranganui iwi health authority. And I go to that medical health service to this very day and my children have done since they were born as well—28 years it's been in existence. What has evolved over time too is well known is that Dame Tariana was the champion for Whānau Ora—the coleader of the Māori Party with the National Party. And we put that into the fabric and the fibre of the health sector of Aotearoa New Zealand as it is today. Whānau Ora is about delivering to our people at flax roots ground level. Despite all the good intentions the Māori Health Authority is a recalibration and a reframing of a bureaucratic institution standing alongside another public health authority. I am not convinced that that is the way to go. I have screeds of notes here before me but I am speaking as I know it and I will refer to those notes at another time.But I say I'm not convinced that this bill is going to calibrate the way that we would desire and hope that it does in addressing those health inequities in our nation. I'm not convinced because we've seen during this COVID time that the Ministry of Health has put the handbrake on the funding to go to the very people we know who know our communities who know best to be resourced to provide and deliver to our people in the communities. Now if it's thought that a Māori Health Authority which is going to be a bureaucratic institution that is going to be filled with the elite—it is going to be filled with more bureaucrats and it is going to take the pūtea the funding the money that is desperately needed to be rerouted directly to our people who are of the most vulnerable and of the most need. We've seen that during these COVID times and we've seen and we've heard the Minister direct his ministry to say that money goes directly to our service providers our Māori communities and our vulnerable on the ground. And they will be the ones to deliver. So really we have hope I have hope but I am a person who's based on pragmatism and reality and lived life experience.There are other components to this bill that are important. Essentially it establishes three entities: a Health New Zealand entity which is the new Crown agency; a Māori Health Authority which I've spoken to; and a Public Health Agency which means is effectively the current Ministry of Health. The key message that comes at this point in time is we are in a crisis as a nation with our health crisis but also our crisis as a nation in terms of what is our identity. What is our identity? Are we going down a pathway where we separate out? And I know full well the relevance and the significance of the relationship and the status and the standing of mana whenua of this nation but I also know full well the relevance and the significance of those whom we stand alongside and should we be going down separate pathways.There will be robust and respectful debate that I invite on this but I will invite also members before we come back to the second reading of this bill—distinguished Professor Dame Anne Salmond in her article she talks about how we could be designing a new institutional order which is a big picture of Aotearoa rather than Māori verse non-Māori. Look at provoking ways of imagining those relations and relationships that we have with each other. There is an opportunity to rethink identity in terms of whakapapa that includes other living systems and lifeforms. Whanganui Te Awa Tupua we are evidence of that in terms of the legal personification of our living life source of our awa and our river. And Dame Anne Salmond also talks about bringing together ideas of whakapapa and complex systems in designing new institutional forms of order in Aotearoa as well as relationships between people. I do not support this bill.