Māori Purposes Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Māori Purposes Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee, that the committee report back to the House on or before 27 March 2008, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening of a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c).

This bill brings together amendments to a variety of legislation related to Māori affairs, including the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board Act 1988, the Maori Trust Boards Act 1955, the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993. On the whole the changes are in the nature of housekeeping. They update legislative provisions currently out of date, or improve existing provisions. None the less, they are important to the groups affected by these provisions.

Firstly, the bill will amend the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board Act 1988 and the Maori Trust Boards Regulations 1985 to provide for a seventh regional management committee to represent Maniapoto marae from the Kāwhia Harbour region. Until this occurs, a new regional management committee cannot officially represent its constituent marae on the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board, vote on trust board matters, or receive operational funding. By bringing about the formal recognition of the new regional management committee in legislation, the bill ensures that Kāwhia marae will be able to fully participate in the decision making of their iwi governance entity. The Maniapoto Maori Trust Board has also requested that the Act be updated to record the new name of the Maniapoto council of elders. Accordingly the bill replaces references to the council’s previous name, Te Mauri o Maniapoto, with its new name, Te Kaumātua Kaunihera o Maniapoto, throughout the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board Act.

The bill will also align the minimum voting ages under the Maori Trust Boards Act 1955 and the Maori Fisheries Act 2004. Some Māori trust boards also act as trustees of their iwis’ fisheries settlement entity. This means, in practice, that when iwi members vote for members of their trust board, they are also voting for the trustees of their fisheries settlement entity. There is confusion, however, over who is eligible to vote in these elections. Under the Maori Trust Boards Act, iwi members must be 20 years or over to vote, whereas under the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, 18 and 19-year-olds can also vote. This inconsistency in minimum voting ages causes statutory compliance issues for trust boards. If trust boards let only beneficiaries aged 20 years or over vote, they will comply with the Maori Trust Boards Act but be in breach of the Maori Fisheries Act. Equally, if trust boards let 18 and 19-year-olds vote, they will comply with the Maori Fisheries Act but be in breach of the Maori Trust Boards Act. To remove this confusion, the bill will change the minimum voting age under the Maori Trust Boards Act to 18 years. This will bring the Act into line with not only the Maori Fisheries Act but also society’s common understanding of the age of maturity and the voting age for general and other elections.

The bill will also remedy any irregularities in voting that may have occurred due to the inconsistency in minimum voting ages. Some trust boards may have opted to comply with the Maori Fisheries Act and allowed 18 and 19-year-olds to vote. The bill will validate instances where this may have occurred by providing that the election of trust board members prior to enactment of this bill will not be invalid on the basis of under-age voting. This validation will remedy any adverse effects of the statutory inconsistency, and provide certainty for trust boards and beneficiaries.

The bill will also execute a key condition of the agreement between the Crown and the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board relating to Lake Taupō. In 2007 the Crown and the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board came to a final settlement in relation to the trust board’s property rights in Lake Taupō. Under the agreement, the trust board will receive a lump-sum payment and a new annual payment from the Crown. The bill will amend the Maori Trust Boards Act to provide for the new annual payment so that the trust board will begin to receive a key part of its compensation package.

The bill will also provide for an increase in the membership of the Waitangi Tribunal, from 16 to 20 members. The Government is committed to settling all historical Treaty claims by 2020. An important part of reaching this goal will be the ability of the tribunal to inquire into, and report on, the historical Treaty claims it receives. The tribunal is committed to completing this process by 2015, but has identified that to do so will place further pressure on its already busy membership. The bill addresses this issue by providing the tribunal with four extra members. It is hoped that this increased support will assist the tribunal to achieve its goal of inquiring into, and reporting on, historical treaty claims by 2015—contributing to the Government’s goal of settling all historical Treaty claims by 2020.

The bill also makes technical drafting changes to section 6 of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. Section 6 is a key provision of the Act, as it sets out the rights of Māori to make claims against the Crown in respect of alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and the tribunal’s jurisdiction to consider them. Since the fisheries settlement in 1992, section 6 has been amended every time a settlement is achieved, to specify the effect of each settlement on the tribunal’s jurisdiction. This drafting practice has led to 26 subsections being added to section 6, overshadowing its key provisions. Without the proposed amendment, more subsections would be added as future settlements are achieved. The bill will move these subsections to a new schedule to the Act and add a single provision to section 6, stating that the jurisdiction of the tribunal is subject to the Treaty settlement legislation listed in the new schedule. Finally, the bill tidies up a number of minor drafting errors in some of the other Acts and updates information as required.

In conclusion, I thank the many people who participated in the consultation process for these provisions. Although these amendments may be technical in nature, they will create certainty for a number of Māori groups by ensuring that the legal frameworks in which they operate are up to date and reflect current situations.

I am pleased to take a call on the first reading of the Māori Purposes Bill (No 2), which the Minister moved in the House this afternoon. As the Minister quite rightly said, omnibus legislation deals with matters that are largely technical in nature. He has outlined proposals to amend various Acts. The amendments to the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board Act, the Maori Trust Boards Act, the Treaty of Waitangi Act, and Te Ture Whenua Maori Act are largely technical in nature. They are aimed at increasing administrative efficiency and at tidying up matters of a technical nature that require tidying up. In that sense, the changes in this bill are appropriate. They make sense, and National supports them.

That is why, though, we were quite shocked to find, when the Minister first briefed us on this bill, that he had included major changes to the Maori Trustee Act 1953 in it. We thought the Minister had tried to sneak major changes—after so-called consultation, but not necessarily consultation with the right people—into a bill that should largely meet with the agreement of the Opposition. Those changes are contentious in nature. In fact, just recently I have had inquiries about the changes he proposes to make to the Maori Trustee Act in the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill, which I notice is on the Order Paper but has been shifted quite a long way down it—and that is where it should be. The Minister consulted with us National members, and he had included amendments to the Maori Trustee Act in the Māori Purposes Bill (No 2) that we said we did not accept were actually appropriate, because they were contentious.

I am pleased that the Rt Hon Winston Peters is in the House this afternoon, because he will of course recall the contentious nature of the Maori Trustee Act. When he was the Minister of Māori Affairs under the National Government in 1990, he actually commissioned an inquiry into, and a report on, the Maori Trustee Act. That report was done by the solicitors Richard Charters and Annette Sykes, and, if I recall matters correctly, they came up with some rather horrendous findings that suggested the Māori Trustee may be in debt to beneficiaries to the tune of millions of dollars.

The Minister should really listen to this, because he should actually take the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill off the Order Paper. It is inappropriate and it is contentious, and he has not consulted the right people. The assets of that trust do not belong to all Māori. The owners of those trustee assets can be identified, albeit a lot of them have passed on. But the descendants of those people can be identified, and the bulk of those assets belong in the Waiariki and Aotea district Māori Land Court.

As I say, the Minister took that legislation, those amendments, out of this bill at our request. They are gone for the moment. So we accept that this bill before us is largely technical and we support it. We support the bill before us now.

The Minister has outlined the reasons for the changes included in the bill. I will comment on only a couple of them. The technical nature of the bill is, I think, very well demonstrated by the change to the Maori Trust Boards Act 1955 that specifies a minimum voting age of 18 for Māori trust board elections, as the Minister has explained. There is a difference right now between the minimum voting age for Māori trust boards and the minimum voting age for the mandated iwi organisations under the Maori Fisheries Act—one is 20 years and the other is 18 years, and it makes sense to align them. That will be done, and of course it should be done, because the difference results in extra compliance costs, which the various boards should not have to meet.

One of the other changes reflects changes to the annual payment to be paid by the Crown to the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board. That brings the Act into line with a recent agreement between the Crown and the Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board. Again, that is necessary to give effect to recent agreements.

I suppose the one area of this legislation that in a way could be contentious, but is probably not in effect contentious, concerns the changes that are proposed to amend the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 to increase the statutory cap on the membership of the Waitangi Tribunal from 16 to 20 and to restructure section 6 of the Act. The first of those changes is probably the more substantial change. The tribunal has been operating with that membership since 1987, I think. There were originally three members on the tribunal, but that was extended to seven. When I was a member of the tribunal—and very proud to be so—there were seven members. In around 1987 the Government of the day took the starting point for claims to be heard back to 1840, and the membership was increased to 16. Given that last year this Parliament set a closing date of next year—2008—for the submission of claims to the Waitangi Tribunal, and given that this Government is endeavouring to complete all settlements by the year 2020, in National’s view it makes sense to increase the membership in the way that is proposed in this bill today.

I suggest that increasing the Waitangi Tribunal’s membership is one thing, but I trust that the Government will also boost the funding of the Waitangi Tribunal to enable it to take advantage of that increase in membership. Given the Government’s record over the last 8 years of not properly funding the tribunal, yet seeking for it to get going in its work, there is no point in having additional members without having the financial resources needed to make sure that all 20 members are sitting regularly and can, in fact, sit like a normal court. That is one of the things National would give consideration to. This measure will only make sense, and we will only get through the settlement of claims in a timely and durable way, if the membership of the tribunal is given proper backing and support to enable it to sit regularly in order to clear the mountain of claims that still lie before it. I hope we do not have—as we do now—members not always being fully occupied: some members waiting to be appointed to a tribunal, and some members not sitting regularly at all. That does not make sense when the tribunal is under a time limit of sorts. The Minister makes no mention at all that he sees the need to increase the funding of the tribunal. So, as I say, I hope this will not be a Clayton’s increase, where we get more members but they sit around not hearing claims.

In reality the tribunal has been poorly served under this administration. It has had to cancel hearing dates that it had scheduled—sometimes those scheduled for the beginning of the year get moved towards the end of the year. Urgent inquiries have necessitated changes to the tribunal’s timetable. We do not want to have any of that. As I say, we are very supportive of the increase in membership, but we want to see the Minister committed to ensuring that financial resources follow that membership increase. I know that would be hard for that Minister, though actually this is not the Minister that the money comes through; it is a justice one. Who would that be?

💬 Christopher Finlayson: Barker.

It is Rick Barker, the Minister for Courts. He is going to get the money needed to support the tribunal’s new membership. So a good job for Parekura Horomia in the new year is to get on to Rick Barker, chase him around, make sure that he has put in a Budget bid for the next year, and make sure that the tribunal members actually get to work, sit on claims, start to clear the logjam of claims, and get these settlements out.

One thing is absolutely certain: although some claimants are happy to move to direct negotiations, other groups of claimants want to have their day in court. National recognises that. When we get into power next year, we will make sure that the tribunal can meet deadlines and can move to get the settlement process under way in a much more robust matter than is currently the situation.

Debate interrupted.