Flavell Te Ururoa: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5373] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora ano. Kia ora tatou. I have a couple of quick points. 
Most of the other issues have been covered but one of the things I have not had answered which I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Mark Burton to consider is an issue in clause 48 which is in respect of the establishment of the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group. I put forward an amendment earlier to clause 5(5)(a) in respect of the number of Te Arawa members on that group being two and I would not mind a response on that because I think it is a key issue. I tried to put forward an amendment on it earlier but the Minister did not give me a response with regard to how we might cover the equitable arrangement around it. So I would appreciate some feedback over that. 
The other issue we talked about was the bigger picture around the whole notion about accountability in a sense—not just the statement in the bill about Te Arawa having two members. As we mentioned earlier the Rotorua District Council and Environment Bay of Plenty will be parties to the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group but one would have thought that the notion of equitable numbers between the new owner—namely Te Arawa—and those other bodies responsible would allow for a better balance of power sharing in the sense of rangatiratanga under article 2 of the Treaty and therefore might have meant a better way forward. I know that a number of submitters—and indeed people back in Rotorua—have argued that as the new owners surely we can have equitable numbers on the body that will be looking after the clean-up of the lakes. They were fairly adamant that it would be very good to address that sort of notion. So I wanted to address that. 
The other provisions I want to bring to the attention of the Minister are new clauses 51A and 51B set out on Supplementary Order Paper 57 which is in my name. He will know that one of the issues raised was that of the three lakes—namely Ngahewa Opouri/Ngapouri and Tutaeinanga—that fall under the jurisdiction of Environment Waikato. So the Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group will be made up of members of the Rotorua District Council and Environment Bay of Plenty with Te Arawa—and we hope Te Arawa will have equal representation with the other two parties if that discussion is to have some fruition—but that group will have no jurisdiction over three of those 14 lakes. There are 14 lakes and three of them are outside the jurisdiction of the three parties that are supposed to be cleaning the place up. 
So what happens for those three lakes? Nought. There is a view that the group should simply talk to Environment Waikato but there is nothing there that acts as a lever to get Environment Waikato to come to the party. The officials told the Maori Affairs Committee that Part 2 of the Resource Management Act 1991 variously requires Environment Waikato to have regard to the Treaty of Waitangi and the values of Te Arawa in respect of their ancestral lands and water. That was supposed to be the leverage that would make sure that Environment Waikato comes to the party. Well if that is the case then it should have come to the party some 20 or 30 years ago because that would have helped keep those lakes in the pristine condition that some of us remember as children. The Te Arawa Maori Trust Board told us that it had had no discussions with Environment Waikato. So I seek some assurances from the Minister in terms of the particular point of those three lakes being outside the jurisdiction of Environment Bay of Plenty and in the hands of Environment Waikato that Te Arawa has some guarantees that the concept of cleaning up all of the lakes in one shot will be part of the work conducted by Environment Waikato. I hope he will provide some sort of response to that. Kia ora.