Coffey TāmatiTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I acknowledge the Minister on this for bringing this to the House; the chair of the committee ably chaired by the Hon Eugenie Sage; the members of the committee I think we've shared a lot of time over the last seven months both in sitting weeks and on recess weeks on Zoom as well; but mostly to the many submitters that came before us the many submitters who emailed us—both solicited and unsolicited—because they wanted to see really good resource management laws made here in New Zealand. Can I say that we are in an interesting time in New Zealand's history between central government and local government; they've pretty much set the rules when it comes to resource management in New Zealand. And we're at a time now where many iwi have settled with the Government—not all but many have. Part of that means that they have special relationships special recognition of their waterways their rivers their lakes—where I come from—and land. For that they have an absolute expectation that they get a say in what any kind of resource management law looks like. That's why I'm proud to stand here today and back this piece of legislation. Is it a silver bullet? No it's not. Is it going to be perfect? No it's not going to be perfect either. But it's a heck of a lot better than what we're having to fuddle through since 1991 and the many iterations since the start of the Resource Management Act back then.This has been the bread and butter of the committee's work but I have especially paid attention to the submitters that have come in Māori submitters from iwi hapū Māori land trusts and organisations saying that they expect that they can have a say in what the future looks like for their area whether it be the impact on their waterways on their biodiversity on building new housing or infrastructure. This has been really really important because it's a new day it's a new dawn. These iwi that have settled have new expectations and I believe that this bill absolutely does this making sure that we recognise and uphold te Oranga o te Taiao is huge.It is new to our House and obviously we will need to grapple with what that looks like. But just as we've come off our Matariki celebrations we've managed to come off that too. That's something that we've embraced as a nation and we'll embrace this too. Making sure that we're giving effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi; providing greater recognition of Te Ao Māori; having a greater recognition of mātauranga Māori is also really important in this too making sure that we've got Māori around the decision-making tables the regional planning committees a minimum of two alongside the councils.In Māori we say Rae ki te rae" which is "meeting forehead-to-forehead" or "chief-to-chief". That kind of representation around those decision-making tables is incredibly important and it's for that reason that I believe that Māori around the country will be supporting this bill. I hope that they do; obviously we've still got the committee stage to go and the third reading but to this point it's a heck of a lot better than we've had to date and for that reason I commend this bill to the House."