Tangaere-Manuel CushlaCUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe te Māngai o te Whare.[Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.][Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]Mr Speaker I stand to speak on the Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill aka the you Māori can just stay on the advisory panel and the Kāhui Kaumātua" bill.I just wanted to address first of all one of the comments that was made from that side of the House where he suggested that we should all just stand together as one. Sadly Mr Speaker for Māori this country doesn't have a very good track record of that. I recently had the privilege of becoming a member of the Ngarimu VC Scholarship board and one of the new categories is audio visual. One of the entrants was a beautiful young wahine who I believe is from te nota and she told the story of how our tīpuna went away and fought together as one; we went and we fought for Aotearoa as one. When they came back they were left landless didn't have access to the grants for homes and some were even excluded from the RSAs—return servicemen's associations—so as you can understand the track record is not very good and that's why this representation is so important.Furthermore though since localism has been used so much what about the 52 local and regional councils who say "No this is not what we want. We've been through the process and we say no kahore leave us alone to be local manage local and govern locally."—which is what they are. What about them?So the clear message here is: you do what you're told. So while my colleagues all across this side of the House and I know it is the view of some sitting opposite as well have done a really good job of clarifying how this bill is clearly an attack on Māori my warning is to Aotearoa whānui because [Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.][Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]—Māori are excited alive ready to be heard and going nowhere because we belong to this whenua; we can't go anywhere. We will return to this whenua. But everyone else—for example Hastings Heretaunga council who says "We are strongly and unanimously opposed to this."—sorry this Government don't care. Our leaders already quoted the 52 mayors who said "This is an overreach this counts." This Government's not listening whānau. They don't care. So if they're coming for Māori anyone out there who's sitting comfortable do not. You are in the firing line too. And this word kuare has been used aptly; the word kuare whānau means ignorant. Whakahihi has been used; that word means arrogant. But the word that comes to my mind is mataku—fear—and yet fear when in 1840 when our tīpuna signed the Treaty what we were doing was giving everybody somewhere to belong. And now we're fighting for our voice around the tables. Fear makes you do funny things whānau and I'm talking to all the Māori and non-Māori listening. Fear makes you even turn on your own like my poor Labour colleagues who got called "white saviours" in the House last week. So what does that tell us? Not only are Māori being attacked for standing up for our own rights our rights as mana whenua and tangata whenua but anyone listening out there kia tupato because if you stand with us they're gonna turn on you too. And I say to you: kia kaha ra—that's standing in partnership that's standing together as one not basing your opinion on what your race is; actually basing your opinion on what's right. So here's one more message to our whānau out there—and Andy Foster thank you for your statistics and if this Government carries on the way it's going every Māori's going to be forced to get on the Māori roll so we might have to make room for more Māori seats in this House; how exciting it that how exciting is that was to happen under this Government. [Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.][Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]I will remind you Māori mā [Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.][Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]Mr Speaker I do not commend this bill to the House"