Luxon ChristopherCHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): Madam Chair listen thank you so much for letting me take this call. I just want to reinforce the things that my colleagues have talked about over the last hour and a half I think it has been. Really what we're wrestling with here is again a consequence of this poor process because fundamentally we're discussing clause 5 this amendment to section 9. And really this has been a problem with this bill in general that because we've had insufficient time there hasn't been any serious entertainment of any amendments whatsoever to this bill we fundamentally haven't thought through how it interacts with other bits of legislation that exist—and that can be the Local Government Act it could be the Local Electoral Act it can even be the Auckland Council super-council Act that was created as well. There are a whole bunch of implications where this legislation is clunky in terms of how it fits with everything else. So I think there is a very poor process that's being used and as a result we're really struggling with the detail of how this thing actually gets implemented and how it interacts with other bits of legislation.If I can go back the real thing we're trying to discuss here is that we're arguing that we want alignment with general wards. It's really clearly stated on page 1 of the bill under the explanatory note where it says The policy intention of the Bill is to align the treatment of Māori wards and Māori constituencies with the treatment of general wards and general constituencies". Now we've been arguing that it hasn't actually done that in this legislation but that's the intention that the Minister has put in here.By the time you get to page 2 of this bill—and we're discussing clause 5 and thinking about section 9 and amending section 9—there really are fundamentally three challenges with it. The first is this notion that a council or a regional council can have a binding referendum on absolutely anything that it chooses to have it on. We may not like that but things like the colour of the town hall; whether you're going to build a library or not; whether you build a swimming pool or not; whether you form a community board for example; whether you actually have a unitary plan or a new town plan that you want to get the voice of your residents around—Simon Bridges talked about dog collars. But the reality is that there is a whole bunch of things—on anything—a council can have a binding referendum and including a general ward. That is a preclusion here in this legislation that we are saying the one thing that a council can't have a binding referendum around is a Māori ward. The principle of that is very simple. It is the fact that the elector not the elected is actually getting to make these decisions. So that's the first point: that fundamentally a binding referendum is possible on everything except a Māori ward and that's because we haven't had the time to think through how all those interactions actually come together.The second point I'd say is that the Minister then went on to say "Well don't worry about that that's OK because we've actually got a non-binding referendum that can take place." And you have to sort of say "What's the point?" What's the point of a council running a non-binding referendum around Māori wards and actually having all those people agitated for or against and actually nothing happens at the end of it? It undermines the power and the influence and the trust in the council.If you just think about it on Māori wards imagine if Māori wards had been a non-binding referendum from when the first votes on Māori wards started happening back in May 2003. So you would have had 66 percent of people in Ōpōtiki vote against it; Papakura we had 83 percent vote in 2004; Taranaki 88 percent against; Whakatāne 70 percent against; Waikato80 percent against; Nelson City 79 percent of the residents there voted in 2012 against this; Hauraki it was 80 percent; Far North District Council 68 percent; New Plymouth District 83 percent voted against it—these are local residents voting against the bill—Western Bay of Plenty District 78 percent; Whakatāne 55 percent; Kaikōura 80 percent; Palmerston North 69; and Manawatū 77. So imagine if all of those referendum from 2003 to 2018 had been non-binding. What's the consequence of that? We talked about wanting to take people with us to have the courage to use our political capital to win arguments to take people with us on electoral law reform of constitutional matters. What happens with all that angst anger and anxiety that sits there with that sort of division being created?The third thing is that once you've actually created the Māori poll the answer from the Minister has been: "Well if you don't like your mayor or your councillors just vote them out." But once the ward has been created there is no way to revoke the ward and as a consequence that doesn't exist. You can revoke a general ward if you wish but you can't revoke a Māori ward once it's been created.So I think there are major issues with this clause. The major issues are that we can get binding referendum on everything else except the creation of Māori wards. You can have a non-binding referendum but what's the point? And the third thing is really why can't you revoke a Māori ward like you can for a general ward to get that alignment that we've been talking about and we want to see in this bill? Thank you."