Hayes Joanne: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHayes Joanne: Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3497. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JOANNE HAYES (National): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Before I start my korero I too want to pay respects on the passing of our Ngāti Hine rangatira Ērima Hēnare and I wish also to pass on my aroha to you Peeni and to your whānau. Kia ora. The other person I would like to acknowledge is the Hon Maggie Barry our Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage who is shepherding this bill the Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill through the House. It is a very important bill. Even though it is quite narrowly focused it is important in the history of this country.The purpose of the bill is to make changes to the Waitangi National Trust Board membership and that is why it has such a narrow focus. Before I talk about that focus and the membership and the kōrero we had at the Māori Affairs Committee I just want to take us on a little trip down through the annals of history because without the history we would not be here discussing this bill today.The background to this bill is that the property the house was owned by the Busby whānau. During the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century the land and the building kind of changed hands a bit. In 1932 as we have heard a former member of Parliament Vernon Reed had a passion that the Treaty House and the grounds it was on were a historic place and needed to be nurtured. That is why he invited the then Governor-General Lord Bledisloe and Lady Bledisloe to come and have a look at the grounds and the Treaty House to encourage them to make sure that that house was going to be preserved.Lord and Lady Bledisloe obviously did more than that as we have heard from previous speakers. They bought the grounds. Lord Bledisloe also invested £1000 into the Waitangi restoration fund to start the process for restoring the Treaty House itself. The Government of the day also added another £500 to that restoration fund. So the first form of restoration started back in 1932. It was also the time when the 1932 Act began. I stand here as a mokopuna of this land and I am absolutely grateful and thankful to the Bledisloe whānau for their contributions for gifting the Treaty House and the grounds to this nation.Anyway as I was saying the 1932 Act—the Waitangi National Trust Board Act—gave statutory effect to the Waitangi National Trust deed and it also established the trust board. The Bledisloes did this in the time of the Great Depression. Our country was going through the Great Depression. There was high unemployment and this was a way for the Bledisloe whānau to be able to help people by giving them employment in the restoration of that house. It was also another way that Lord Bledisloe could settle up the relationship between Pākehā and Māori.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.JOANNE HAYES: I have just a little more of the historical facts about what happened on the Treaty grounds. In 1834 the Confederation of the United Tribes of Aotearoa first raised their flag on the lawn of the Treaty House. It was very historic. As we all know 6 years later in 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed although only a few days later the biggest signing was held across at Te Mangungu Marae. I was privileged to be at their 100-year celebration this year with the Minister the Hon Maggie Barry.The Waitangi National Trust Board Amendment Bill modernises the governance of the board members of the trust. I just want to acknowledge our New Zealand First member Pita Paraone. I just want to say that it is a very humble thing for him to step away from the discussions at the select committee. I know he was bursting to actually get involved in those discussions but the gentleman that he is he sat back. Also he went off the trust board so he did not have many conflicts of interest there. I just want to say that I was pleased to hear from him that the trust members were supporting this very important bill. That is not to say that the membership discussion within the select committee was not debated very vigorously. I just want to thank the chair and my co-members of the Māori Affairs Committee for the debate and I thank the members of the Parliamentary Counsel Office who came in with their report and listened to our discussions around membership. We have heard from other members in the House about that membership.I just want to reiterate that the current membership of the trust board has four ex officio members including the Governor-General the Prime Minister the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Māori Development and we are starting to look at how that is going to pan out which I will talk about a bit later. There are family representations from Archdeacon Henry Williams Edward Gibbon Wakefield and James Busby as well as a family member—I think it is Pita Paraone at the moment—representing the whānau of Hone Heke Maihi Kawiti Tāmati Waka Nene and the Pomare families. There is a representative of the Māori people north of Auckland peninsula—which I think was the position that the rangatira Ērima Hēnare held on the trust board before he passed away—a Māori or Pākehā representative living in the South Island a Māori representative south of Auckland and a prominent person who has experience either a historian or an archaeologist. So those are the current members of the board.What we are proposing is as the Minister outlined in her speech that the Governor-General and the Ministers will be removed as ex officio members on the board. The Governor-General will became an honorary patron of the trust and the Prime Minister the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and the Minister for Māori Development will form the Crown representative group. Hopefully this will foster good relations and share information with the board. The two members of Parliament one representing the Government and one representing the Opposition will be appointed as full members of the board. By removing these ex officio positions on the board we remove the risk of conflicts between constitutional roles and other roles of the trustees.As I said before the bill creates a clear separation between the Government and the board while providing a means to ensure a positive working relationship through the Governor-General’s patronage of the trust the creation of the Crown representative group and the appointment of two members of Parliament as members of the trust. Currently there is no statutory tenure limit for the board members on the trust. The bill proposes that we implement a limited tenure of no more than 9 years although our select committee did debate the fact that current members once the bill is implemented may have a further 3-year term in their positions on the board.In closing I note that this is a narrowly focused bill. It is a bill that from what I have heard in the House is supported by everybody in the House. It incorporates the Waitangi National Trust Board which as we know administers the Waitangi grounds and associated lands. It gives more power to that trust to be able to do things that it had not been able to do in the past. I look forward to what is planned through the Waitangi National Trust. I also look forward to the modernisation of the legislation and its fruition. Thank you very much. I commend this bill to the House.