Jones Dail: Treaty of Waitangi (Removal of Conflict of Interest) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Dail: Treaty of Waitangi (Removal of Conflict of Interest) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16722] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to congratulate Mr Dave Hereora on his speech and thank him for his kind remarks as well. He at least looked at the Treaty of Waitangi Act read the report gave consideration to it and gave some thought to what he had to say. That is unlike the member of the Maori Party whom I doubt ever really read the report or the Treaty of Waitangi Act. I especially doubt whether that member has ever looked at section 4 because in his entire speech he seemed to be absolutely ignorant of the issues that are before the House tonight. I would also like to thank all other members who took part in this debate. New Zealand First is disappointed that this matter is clearly not going any further but its members appreciate the opportunity for the bill to have been sent to the select committee and for the people of New Zealand to give consideration to the issue raised by New Zealand First. 
I would like to make some points on the bill that seem to have escaped the attention of most members of the House. Currently section 4(2) of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 which is the section in question states: “The Tribunal shall consist of—(a) a Judge or retired Judge of the High Court”. Currently the Waitangi Tribunal can consist of a judge or retired judge of the High Court not only the Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court. Section 4(2) states further “or the Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court.” The Act already envisages that the Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court may not be the only possibility for chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal. That possibility is already contained in the Act which goes on to state “and the Judge is both a member of the Tribunal and its Chairperson and is appointed by the Governor-General…” etc. So currently when we talk about expertise and all those wonderful things the person who can be the chairperson need not be a Maori person and need not be the Maori Land Court judge. That is already provided for in the Act and that is something we should bear in mind. 
Subsection (b) which is not part of this bill states that the tribunal shall also consist of “Not less than 2 other members and not more than 16 other members …”. New Zealand First members made the point when we presented the bill to the House that the Act should be amended so that the chairperson should be either a retired judge of the High Court—I emphasise that he should be a retired judge of the High Court and that is already provided for in the current Act—or a retired Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court. The only change that we are bringing into this legislation is that the person who is a judge of the Maori Land Court should be someone who is a retired Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court. It is as simple as that yet for one reason or another the bill has been totally confused by so many members of this House. 
I have heard speeches given tonight saying that if we remove the Maori Land Court judge and if we put in a retired Chief Maori Land Court Judge as this bill states we will lose expertise. Well that must be nonsense because a retired Chief Maori Land Court Judge is likely to know a lot more than a recently appointed Chief Maori Land Court Judge. That is the first point. 
The second point of course is that irrespective of who the judge or chairperson might be we have up to 16 other possible members of the tribunal. In terms of the very way in which they are appointed subsection (2)(a) of that section states: “In considering the suitability of persons for appointment to the Tribunal the Minister of Maori Affairs—(a) Shall have regard to the partnership between the 2 parties of the Treaty; and (b) Shall have regard not only to a person’s personal attributes but also to a person’s knowledge of and experience in the different aspects of matters likely to come before the Tribunal.” So every other member of the Waitangi Tribunal has to have that expertise. 
So all these speeches I have been hearing in the last few days that have said there will be a lack of expertise are absolute nonsense. It suggests that the members who made those speeches have not actually read the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and grasped the provisions of section 4(2)(a). Every other member of the tribunal must have that expertise. There would be no question of expertise being lost if the person were a retired High Court judge because the only other person would be the retired Maori Land Court judge. 
New Zealand First is saying that when one has a current serving judge whether it is of the High Court or the Maori Land Court there is inevitably a concern that someone is currently in the business of dealing with these lands and suchlike and that “justice is not being seen to be done”. For some reason or another there is always a concern especially when we have a disgruntled person before the tribunal that someone is likely to say that a person is currently a Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court and that he is looking after his mates and his family. Well that is not possible under the proposal that is set out by New Zealand First to have a retired High Court judge which is already provided for in the existing law or a retired Maori Land Court judge. That is the only difference: a retired Maori Land Court judge is what we say should apply assisted by two to 16 others. Many of the arguments I have heard suggest that members have not grasped the bill in any way at all. 
Of course even Mr Finlayson when he was speaking in this House on 21 May—and his speech appears in  
Hansard  
at page 16213—made the point quite correctly that what we have before us is a commission of inquiry. The Waitangi Tribunal is not a court. It does not make binding decisions; it is merely a commission of inquiry that gathers information and can then make a recommendation. Of course in doing so it must have expertise in the areas concerned and we are all in agreement with that. Mr Finlayson made a rather specious comment in his speech as to whether the person should be an accountant or a teacher. Obviously he has not read the bill very well because we have made it clear that the person has to be a retired High Court judge as is currently the case or a retired Maori Land Court judge. As far as the second point that Mr Finlayson and other members have raised is concerned—and they have quite properly raised this point because there was reference to the conflict of interest that might arise—Mr Finlayson in his speech at page 16213 agrees that there can be a potential conflict of interest. I am concentrating on this speech because it has been made by a lawyer and he should have thought these comments through clearly. 
When we talk about conflicts of interest and current judicial officers being involved in the Waitangi Tribunal members have said that no one has ever complained about the current holders of the positions. Well I have a letter here in front of me from a distinguished person. He mentioned that he heard Pita Paraone speaking and said: “I express support for removing judges from the Waitangi Tribunal … and I found that in his area of New Zealand it is not well serviced by the Maori Land Court judges. This is because of the time that has been spent on Waitangi Tribunal hearings so judges often come down to us totally ill prepared having not even read court files till the morning of the hearing. Oh well that’s what they expect in that part of New Zealand.” 
One of the problems with the Maori Land Court judges or even if a High Court judge was the chairperson concerned is that if they are busy doing other Waitangi Tribunal work they have to go back and do their Maori Land Court work. Well they do not even prepare properly for the Maori Land Court work according to this person who has written to New Zealand First. 
So clearly in that respect if we had a retired judge he or she would be able to give his or her whole time to the position rather than be a part-time worker judge or chairperson. We want a full-time person involved in the Waitangi Tribunal. We have the greatest respect for the work it does which is why we want better quality time available for the person who chairs the Waitangi Tribunal. That does not seem to have been accepted by the other parties in this House. We are disappointed that the other parties in this House do not want to see a full-time chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal. A full-time person would give all the time and devotion to the job that a full-time person can. A part-timer who is involved in things that might create potential conflicts of interest can clearly not do the job as well. New Zealand First wants to see the best possible representative as chairperson on the tribunal. 
As far as some of the other issues are concerned I think I have covered them. Once again I thank all members of the House for the contributions they have made although I thought that the Maori Party was a little bit childish and repetitious and clearly did not understand the situation. Finally I was concerned at the comments made about the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill. If members could have just worked out that the only words being removed were “the principles of” and that the words “Treaty of Waitangi” still stayed then they would have had clarification. Thank you.