Mahuta NanaiaHon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): Actually having heard that contribution by Marama Fox I just had to get up and speak because there are a couple of things that we need to take from the comments that were just made. Sixteen exposure drafts indicates to me that it is very difficult to co-design a piece of legislation. In fact it took a very long time because the Minister for Māori Development heard so much feedback and dissatisfaction from owners that he realised that this is not a good way to do legislation. It is fundamentally a very difficult way to address some of the core issues at the heart of what makes Māori tick which is the Māori land tenure system. Books have been written about it. Academics more qualified than me have written to a degree that tells us that if you are going to change Māori land law tenure to be very careful about how you do it. So 16 exposure drafts I think very much highlighted that in the first instance.But I want to come back to the bill and specifically Part 1 and the intent. When we consider how the new land framework will work for Māori we should ask the questions that have been debated in the House. First is the issue of tikanga. Very erudite speeches have been made but can I say this: if we apply tikanga to the way in which Māori feel about land my colleague Pita Paraone is absolutely right—the reference to ownership becomes a non-reference within that context. In fact what you would have seen in New Zealand is a land tenure system much like the Pacific where you would have long leaseholding types of arrangements that enable the utilisation of land which ensures the retention of land to whakapapa owners—owners who have a whakapapa interest in land—yet you are still able to utilise it for a period of time. That is not the case in New Zealand because things happened here. We understand that. So I think some of this is a little bit ethereal—some of the debates around the legislation truly giving back the rangatiratanga to Māori owners.Let me come back to the issue of tikanga. I accept that tikanga should be an opportunity within hapū groups certainly to try to resolve some very difficult issues. But let us go to the reality. That is not often the case. If you have I guess even within a hapū some very different versions of how tikanga applies who in the end adjudicates? That is what we are just raising here within the context of the bill. If a hapū cannot settle on an outcome it does go back to the court. So let us just call a spade a spade and recognise that although tikanga to the best intents and purposes is inserted in the bill it actually may not deliver the outcome that is sought and still the court remains the place where a remedy is achieved. Secondly on the issue of tikanga—especially when we think about the ways in which people connect to their whenua and want to exercise a right and an interest—I am all for actually modernising the participation of owners. Coming back to Part 1 one of the things that it indicates is that there is the provision for other people who may not whakapapa to the land who can act on behalf of the interests of owners to exercise that interest.Let us just come back to kaiwhakamarumaru. We did talk about this in the Māori Affairs Committee. It was an opportunity if for example children are not of an age to make those decisions for a kaiwhakamarumaru to be appointed. Who appoints? It is the court. Does that person necessarily have to have a whakapapa interest in land—possibly not probably not maybe not. How then do they make a good judgment on behalf of children in an instance where these children or young people cannot make that determination themselves? Well common sense will prevail. I get that. Common sense will prevail and they will exercise their own judgment. But that is nothing to do with tikanga. That is just common sense and being pragmatic. So let us not disguise the Māori words within this kind of shroud of belief that therefore tikanga will apply. It is not like that.One of the other key challenges I think to give real effect to the bill which we have questioned the Minister for Māori Development on and certainly continue to question him on is that when this legislation takes effect we have got a period of time until the major support agency the Māori Land Service is up and running in a way that can support the owners whom this legislation—