Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Bill

I call the Hon Georgina te Heuheu. I might add, for the member’s benefit, that clauses 1 and 2 are taken together, but there will be separate votes. So the member can debate clause 1 and 2, but there are separate votes.

I will take a very short call. We do not want to be seen to be dragging out something that we are all in support of, and that is obvious, but the title, the Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Bill, is very important. It is a very proper title, obviously. But if one reads the title only, without knowing the substance of the bill, then one may not necessarily get the significance of what is being achieved here. It certainly is a collective, which is one that I do not think we have seen before; a number of iwi have come together in terms of the commercial side of interests that have their genesis some 20-odd years ago in the Crown Forests Assets Act 1989.

The bill makes provision for the allocation of land under the Crown forests, but the individual claims of the iwi involved are still to be completed. It is a unique initiative and one that, hopefully, will be repeated, if, in fact, it all appears that it is able to work the way it is obviously intended to work here. So it may be that we will see more region-wide settlements where we have collectives involved as well. This is the first one. It is unique. We support it. We would like to see it happen again.

My colleague Pita Paraone might suggest—[Interruption]—oh, OK. I will not say anything about the north then. But I was just hoping we might see that where there are similar iwi interests in a particular region, there may be room for similar legislation, so we might see this term in use again as we go forward. So it is pretty simple. I want to support clauses 1 and 2. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I want to take a short call on clause 1, which is the title. First of all, I say that I support a lot of the sentiments of the previous speaker, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu. You know, we talk about the use of te reo Māori, and I wonder whether any consideration was given by the principals of each of the iwi groupings that came to the negotiating table to the opportunity of giving this particular bill a Māori name. I see that my colleague from the Māori Party is grinning—I do not know whether it is a grin of derision or a grin of support. In terms of promoting the use of te reo, I would have thought that this might be an opportunity to give the bill a Māori title.

I am very mindful of the fact that the spokesperson for Ngāti Manawa was very emphatic about what Ngāti Manawa meant in relation to his tribe. Of course, I can appreciate what he said. But I think that we will see similar titles in terms of collectives and affiliates, and I suppose this title does provide a blueprint for titles of similar settlement bills. There is an opportunity for both the Crown and negotiators to consider Māori titles for our legislation. During my first term in this House I can recall making references to the opportunity of giving bills Māori titles. If it is OK for the House to provide committee reports back to the House in te reo Māori, then I think that at some time in the near future we should be seeing bills that pass into law being written in te reo Māori.

New Zealand First does not have any concerns about the title of this bill or its commencement date. Kia ora.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 not agreed to.

New clause 2 Commencement

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 230 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen to insert new clause 2 be agreed to.

New clause 2 agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.