Harawira Hone: Maori Trustee Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Maori Trustee Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2326] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. I am happy to stand today in support of the Maori Trustee Amendment Bill for a number of very good reasons. First the bill deals with issues that have been the subject of successive reviews and considerable debate. Second it tidies up matters that have been contentious and controversial for many Maori for a very long time. Third the bill brings the longstanding review of the Maori Trustee to a conclusion. Fourth it helps set a more positive path forward for the Maori Trustee and the many Maori who have interests administered by the trustee. Fifth by supporting the bill I get to support the Hon Dr Pita Sharples co-leader of the mighty Maori Party. He is the very first Minister of Maori Affairs in the 155-year history of the House to present a bill as a member of an independent Maori party and as a member of the independent Maori Party itself—the parliamentary wing of Te Ao Maori. 
The Maori Trustee has touched the lives of large numbers of Maori and their whanau since it was first established back in 1920 when it was known as the Native Trustee. It has had a chequered and not always popular history over the years including its involvement in the passing of the Maori Trustee Act in 1953 decades of massive social and economic upheaval for Maori and the many policy changes affecting Maori land such as the 1993 Te Ture Whenua Maori Act with its recognition of the importance of land to Maori. 
The Maori Trustee has been publicly slated as well like when it was roundly criticised in the Ngai Tahu report of 1991 for its successive failure as the Crown’s appointed trustee to administer reserved land properly. This included the failure of the trustee to consult with owners failure to act as a prudent trustee failure to take action to amalgamate land titles and develop lands and failure to prevent land from being taken for public works. There was also the submission from Nga Ruahine that stated that right from when the Maori Trustee was established it did no favours for Maori people and actually lost large tracts of Maori land through trustee mismanagement. So this bill has been a long time coming. 
One feature of this bill is that it sets up the Maori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation—a proposal that had been widely supported by those making submissions and those involved in the consultation hui held throughout the country in 2007 under the previous Minister of Maori Affairs. The bill also addresses one of the key concerns repeated through many of the submissions which is for the Maori Trustee to become more independent of the Crown because although the Maori Trustee is controlled by Government departments there can be very little accountability to Maori. In fact 20 years ago people recommended that many of the functions of the Maori Trustee be devolved from the Department of Maori Affairs to hapu and iwi. Others have also argued that if the Maori Trustee were to continue then independent appointment and monitoring of it would be critical to the credibility of the office. 
Currently the job of Maori Trustee is given to a public servant employed by Te Puni Kokiri. I acknowledge the role that my whanaunga John Paki played in steering the waka forward to this point. As everyone in this House knows there was some pretty dynamic debate about this issue all around the country and at the select committee with some submissions calling for beneficial owners to have a say in the appointment of the Maori Trustee. So it is great to know that under the new arrangement with the trustee being appointed directly by the Minister of Maori Affairs the Minister has already signalled a commitment to consult with beneficial owners about the appointment procedure and to ensure that their voices are included as part of the whole process. I give big ups to the Minister for being willing to front to listen and to be accountable to the very people who give the Maori Trustee its power. 
It is good to hear the Minister give a commitment to working with the owners of Maori land under the guardianship of the Maori Trustee and to revitalising the Maori Trustee’s ability to provide good service to its beneficial owners given that the Maori Trustee looks after the interests of many owners who are not known cannot be found have not succeeded to their land interests may not even be aware that they can succeed or may not know how to. It is also good to know that the Minister will be focusing energy on finding many of those owners to ensure that they are able to re-establish their links to their land and to receive the benefits to which they are entitled. 
That brings me to another important aspect of this bill which is the change to the way the returns on money held by the Maori Trustee are paid to the beneficial owners so that instead of being specified by regulation owners will get returns paid on a pro rata basis of that received by the trustee. That is another plus for beneficial owners. 
As a bonus it is really great to note that the historical debt to the Crown for servicing the Maori Trust Office will also be written off. So a massive debt has also been wiped through this new bill. That is another plus for the beneficial owners whose returns will not now be diminished by major debt-servicing. 
Finally I note the new reporting arrangements for the Crown funding which will ensure transparency and accountability for the funding and services provided. That is another plus for beneficial owners who will now have a clearer idea of the future costs involved in the running of the trustee’s office. 
This is a big bill it is an important bill and it is a bill for Maori. If managed well it will also benefit all New Zealanders by providing more certainty to the operations of a major Maori financial support institution in times when uncertainty and insecurity are dominating influences in our world. Sure there will always be areas that can be improved and over time we hope to improve them with the support of all Maori in this House but this bill will provide certainty to the office and positive benefits to the beneficial owners. Importantly the bill will go down in history as the first bill ever presented to a New Zealand Parliament by a Minister of Maori Affairs representing an independent Maori voice in Parliament and an independent Maori party in the nation’s House of Representatives. For that we can all be grateful and we can look ahead to bigger and better things. For all those reasons the Maori Party will support this bill. Tena tatou katoa.