Fox MaramaMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker—a very wise decision indeed given that I think the first speaker who was indeed a member of the support party was also the sponsoring Minister of the bill.I want to turn my comments to our support from our advisers. Those advisers from Te Puni Kōkiri on behalf of the Crown gave incredible support to the Māori Affairs Committee during the deliberations on this bill and in fact throughout the hearings as we went around the country. They provided us with very sound advice through some complex deliberation. We came to a point clause by clause where everyone in the select committee supported the recommendations. Let me say that one more time: everyone in the select committee supported every recommendation throughout the deliberation process having been debated thoroughly throughout this process. So to John Grant and Tāria Tāhana for their commitment to the Māori Affairs Committee I want to commend them and their efforts.I also want to highlight a couple of themes that this bill does that have not been done before. One is the recognition of whāngai giving it equal status with formal adoption through law. This ensures that as is Māori custom in whāngai—and we debated this back and forward to ensure that we understood it—that custom is now being observed in this bill. In fact a number of tikanga elements are being observed throughout this legislation which does give greater rangatiratanga to Māori land owners. Although we have heard that many Māori land owners did not support this bill there were also a number of Māori land owners who in fact did support this bill. And you are right—it has been somewhat contentious.But here is the thing: much has been said about the importance of having widespread approval. So with that in mind I actually approached the Opposition members of the House to see whether they would put aside political allegiances and come together to work on this bill to ensure that we could have the best piece of legislation possible for our people—for Māori people for Māori land owners. It is true that less than 5 percent or about 5 percent of the land of the whole of Aotearoa is still in the ownership of Māori. Therefore we need to be careful that we do ensure retention and that the land is not at threat.We actually had some submitters who came and said Do you know what? The thresholds are too high. We can't sell the land even if we want to sell the land." or: "We can't even get widespread approval over the 75 percent threshold to make the changes that we want to make." So the protections are so great that some people objected to this bill because the retention of the land is so great. That point needs to be made.But here is what was said to me when we put out the hand across the House to work in a pan-party agreement to ensure we had the best bill possible. What was said to me by Opposition members of the House was: "But Marama that's the game. That's the game we play. We'll object to it and we'll stand up and we'll say those things because you know at the end of the day that's why we are in Opposition." Well if that is the attitude I find it quite surprising that we will ever get there. Meka Whaitiri: What? Name who said that.MARAMA FOX: Oh yes I can tell you exactly who said that. But I do not want to embarrass them in this place.I can tell you also that at the very beginning of this term of Parliament Te Ururoa Flavell invited every member of the Labour Opposition to come and have dinner with him on two occasions and therefore he laid out the work plan including Te Ture Whenua and invited those members to ask him questions to participate and to come and work together if they had any concerns. That was never taken up. Not once did anybody walk through that door and take up the Minister's open invitation to work collaboratively on this bill.But when we came to the deliberations in the Māori Affairs Committee—and I do with the others commend Nuk Korako for the way in which he constructively worked on this—every single recommendation every deliberation was agreed to by every member. There is no record in our proceedings of the objections in the clause by clause consideration. Overall there was disagreement in a minority view but I commend this bill to the House."