Māori Trustee Amendment Bill

Clauses 1, 2, and 3 are quite simple, and relate to the title, the commencement, and the amendment of the principal Act. Clause 1 states that the title of this legislation is the “Māori Trustee Amendment Act 2008”. If members look at this clause, they will see that it says “2008”—

💬 Paul Quinn: That was last year!

Yes, that was last year. Paul Quinn raised a very good point earlier when he asked why Labour did not pass this legislation last year if it was so good and Labour was able to do it. Well, Labour had a slight problem that Mr Quinn might not have been aware of because he was not in the House at that time. Labour had a problem with numbers, and it had the problem of an election coming up. Labour was not doing so well at the time, and it needed support from within the Māori community because there were some seats that it wanted to win.

When we look at the title clause, we see that the reference to 2008 is probably incorrect—it should be 2009. So we may have to amend the legislation to take into account the inability of Labour to gain votes last year. That point is at the heart of why there is this inconsistency in the legislation. The title clause clearly refers to 2008. I say to those who are reading the legislation now that the date is typed in bold print. It will be 2009 when the bill is passed, so maybe that is an issue that needs to be dealt with by the officials. I do not know whether an amendment has to be made to that provision in order to make sure we pass legislation that is correct. The title says “2008”, when in fact the real date in the title will have to be “2009”, according to my understanding of calendar years. There is also the fact that we had an election where the Labour Party lost more Māori seats, which reflects that Labour had not been recognising what Māori actually wanted.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Debate interrupted.