Finlayson ChristopherHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): I'm very happy to take a call on this issue. I'd agree with the Hon member Willie Jackson if I could understand what he said half the time. I want to begin by acknowledging Rino Tirikatene the MP for Te Tai Tonga and excellent chair of the Māori Affairs Committee as I said in the House the other week. I do feel sorry for him because after the contribution from Mr Jackson he must be sitting there saying How did he get to be a Minister and I'm not one?" But look that's the nature of politics and one has to live with these things.I don't intend to speak at length about Treaty negotiations. I'm a very bipartisan sort of a chap and I think it's an area where there should be bipartisanship. I have to say when I was the Minister I had good support from the Labour Party and I think I'd like to continue that support for this Minister and in that regard congratulate him for biting the bullet and being prepared to sign the Pare Hauraki deed and also for moving to a stage of initialling the Marutūāhu deed. And of course standing behind those collective deeds are a lot of individual deeds as well. So congratulations on that and all the very best when dealing with Ngāpuhi. It's interesting for Mr Tirikatene to say there's movement there and I look forward to the evidence of that movement in due course. All I can say to you is best of British old boy.The second thing I want to talk about is the vote that involves Mr Kelvin Davis. Look I'm totally supportive of the portfolio of Crown/Māori Relations. I got the ball rolling in that area when I was Attorney-General and one of the things I'd be interested to hear from the Minister is: how is the register of Crown obligations going? I think that's a very important first step. There'll be a lot of—from time to time—issues that arise dealing with the post-Treaty settlement relationship but there's a broader Crown-Māori relationship that does deserve very careful consideration by Government in the years ahead. A key aspect of that issue is the registry of interests where some good work was done but it hadn't been completed when we left office. But I do think it's very important for the Crown—not Government departments; for the Crown—to know that there are ongoing obligations. When I left office I think there were about 7000 ongoing obligations—quite a number of them the Crown had actually completed its responsibilities. So that's the second major issue and I'd be interested to hear from the Minister on that one.Then we move on from praise and from nice-guy stuff into Māori development because I endorse everything Mr Korako said. Mr Jackson tried to enlist me into his side of the argument—I think to the extent I understood it—but basically it was totally wrong. But the issue in Māori development that really concerns me—and Mr Jackson I think referred to it as that "dirty stinking rotten Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill" or something like that. It was a sort of argument by epithet as opposed to argument by analysis. What we had with the work done on reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to work out how Māori could develop their land. I have said in this House before that there have been reports done showing the potential for Māori land not only for economic development but for papakāinga housing and so on—tremendous opportunities. People kept saying to me "We can't develop this land because of the legal structures."—even people like Shane Jones who is very interested in seeing land developed for forestry recognises the limitations on using land under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act for forestry development because of problems in getting consent.So it's a huge issue. Such a huge amount of work was done and it's just been tossed to one side with the promises that there will be some work done on landlocked land and there will be some work done on this and that but the reality of the matter is nothing is going to happen even though the Labour Party in Opposition put in their manifesto that reform of te ture whenua was a priority. And all that good work that was done to develop the Māori Land Service which would serve to be a disputes resolver to provide expert advice on registration of land and also provide advice on how land could be developed—that's all been washed away and that is a very serious error and that is why this Minister has let the side down."