Māori Purposes Bill

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Otirā, ngā members o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. It is indeed a privilege to make a contribution to the debate on the Māori Purposes Bill in this, the Committee stage. Can I just reorientate us as to the purpose of this particular bill that we are debating. The Māori Purposes Bill serves to improve the governance arrangements for the Wī Pere Trust, enable the trust to acquire and hold land for investment purposes, and clarify the relationships between the Māori Purposes Act and Te Ture Whenua Māori Act.

Why is this an important piece of legislation? Wī Pere was an important figure for Māori, and for all New Zealanders, in our early parliamentary history, and his legacy deserves to be protected. In fact, I am a linear descendant of Wī Pere’s father, so Wī Pere himself was my great-great-grand-uncle, with the dad having had several wives. Wī Pere himself came off the fourth wife, and my lineage to his father comes off the fifth marriage. So I would like to acknowledge that—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Busy boy.

He was very busy—Thomas Halbert, who was Wī Pere’s dad. But, look, Wī Pere should be a leader celebrated for what he did, particularly for the descendants who now enjoy a very successful land trust that operates in the Gisborne area.

So I just wanted to remind us of that as we are debating this bill. It is clear that Labour is supporting it, and I want to talk just briefly on the purposes of the bill. There are about seven parts that this bill is trying to address, which we all support. It is looking at replacing trustees with an incorporated trust board, with body corporate status and limited liability. Its purpose is to allow the trust board to adopt rules relating to internal management and governance, and to set out the new trust board’s initial constitution. It also attempts to remove certain ministerial involvements in the governance of the trust. It also removes the provision deeming all land held by the trust to be Māori freehold land. It enables the trust to acquire and hold general land for investment purposes. It allows the trust to maintain its own register of beneficial interests. It clarifies the interface between the principal Act and the 1993 Act and the jurisdiction of the Māori Land Court.

Can I just turn your attention to Part 1 of the bill, because I really want to speak to my particular Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and give the Committee a reason, I guess, for the SOP. But before I get there, there was a question—because Minister Te Ururoa Flavell is sitting in the chair—and that is in relation to Part 1, new section 3, “Interpretation”, in clause 8, particularly where we talk about “ ‘beneficial interest’ has the meaning given to it in section 17”. Then, when we turn to new section 17 in clause 9 of the bill, we have a definition there that says: “In this Act, ‘beneficial interest’ means, in relation to trust property, the undivided beneficial interest of a beneficiary in the Māori freehold land vested in the board for the purpose of the trust, and includes that beneficiary’s corresponding undivided interest in all other trust property comprised in the trust.” I guess the question that I had for the Minister—and he may be able to shed some light on it—is whether this beneficial interest extends to general land, because it does not say that in either the interpretation or this particular part.

So just some clarity, if the Minister would, just to make it really clear—we understand that we have the freehold Māori land in Wī Pere Trust. It has acquired general land. The issue is: who actually owns the general land?

💬 Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: What’s the clause? What’s the reference again?

So it is new section 17, Minister, and the question was, yes, whether it extends to general land. So that is just one point of clarification. But just in terms of my SOP, SOP No.—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: 205.

—205. There you go—SOP 205. The SOP that I have put forward, to see whether we can get support across the Committee for it, is in relation to clause 9. Again, for the submitters who came in front of the Māori Affairs Committee, there were concerns about the desire of the trust to put the running or the administration of the trust under the jurisdiction of the High Court. Reasons were given at the select committee not only about the cost to file if there were concerns about the running of the trust but also about making it accessible to the beneficial owners to have any concerns that they may raise with the way that the trust is running—their ability to go to the Māori Land Court, as it currently is now.

Can I just say that I have spoken to the current chair of the trust, because I did not want Mr Hāronga to be blindsided by this SOP. His response to me was that the commercial expertise, I guess, would lie best with the High Court, which is why the trust is asking that the administration of the trust goes under the High Court. My response was that the expertise in terms of tikanga actually sits with the Māori Land Court, but I just wanted to give the Committee some assurances that this was put up for the sole reason of ensuring that Wī Pere’s descendants and the whole set-up of the Wī Pere Trust—it does not get too far removed from those beneficial owners.

So I just wanted, by way of explanation, to say both the motivation behind the SOP but also to give you some assurances that I have had this discussion with the chairman of the trust. He was neither here nor there, but that is OK—it is entirely up to the Committee. But I just wanted to put that on the floor to let people know. Kia ora.

Peeni—

💬 Peeni Henare: Henare.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Peeni Henare.

Ka pai. Tēnā koe e Te Heamana. I daresay there will be a few tongue-twisters this evening with the contents of the two bills in front of us.

First of all, I stand in support of my colleague Meka Whaitiri’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 205. She started to talk about the role of the Māori Land Court and the role of the High Court, and I would like to support her particular SOP out of concern about when jurisdiction such as this is changed.

I just briefly want to look at Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. In the principles in clause 3(4) of that bill, it talks about “(a) Māori land endures as a taonga tuku iho by virtue of whakapapa: (b) tikanga Māori is central to matters involving Māori land: (c) Te Tiriti o Waitangi is central to the application of laws affecting Māori land:”, and so on. There are several others there, but you get the general gist of what I am saying there.

I support the SOP from my colleague because of the concerns with regard to the ability for the High Court to understand the types of matters such as whakapapa and to understand the types of matters such as tikanga. I do so not to say that the High Court is not of high quality, but to say that it is all about the precedents, and it is about the involvement that the Māori Land Court has had with Māori land.

In dealing with matters pertaining to Māori land, whether it is trusts or organisations the size of the Wī Pere Trust, or whether it is trusts or organisations of a much smaller nature—of which a lot of the Māori land blocks are across Aotearoa—they are not all under big control. But I think too—and we will no doubt cover this throughout the length of this evening—that this also signals to a lot of Māori land owners across Aotearoa, who will be asking: “Well, is this where things are heading in relation to Māori land jurisdiction and Māori land ownership?”. I have got some serious concerns about that, which is why I stand in support of Meka Whaitiri and her Supplementary Order Paper 205.

We have had some feedback over the past number of months since this bill was taken off the Order Paper—and we find it back now—from Māori land owners across Aotearoa who do not see this as simply a trivial matter of taking it out of one jurisdiction and putting it into another. There is a far more serious impact that could befall many of the Māori land blocks across Aotearoa.

Now I want to turn to Supplementary Order Paper 231, in the name of Minister Te Ururoa Flavell, with regard to the form of money that was allocated to Te Pūtahi Pāoho and that will now, because of the result of Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori of April last year—and I understand that these are some technical matters that just need to be cleaned up. We support that, like we do for Te Reo Māori. We want to see that money be used for the purposes of Te Reo Māori.

I just have a question for the Minister, and I guess it is directly, or indirectly—I will leave that to your discretion, sir—about when that money is appropriated for Te Mātāwai and its exact purpose. Given that Te Mātāwai has been operating for a year now, I have got some questions around the administration. Like I said, sir, I will leave that to your discretion. But we do support that particular SOP, so that the functions of Te Mātāwai can get on with it. I am curious to hear a little bit more about those. So, just to wind up my short call, I support Meka Whaitiri’s SOP 205 and, of course, SOP 231.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. You learn something new every day. I was quite interested to hear that Wī Pere’s father, Thomas Halbert, actually had six wives. I did not realise that. If you can just bear with me for a second, it reminds me of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary in 1979. My grandmother had not seen her younger sister for a couple of decades, I believe. My Great Auntie Eunice turned up—she had had a number of husbands—and my grandmother said: “Oh, what husband are you on to now?”, and she said: “I’m on to my fourth.” My grandmother said: “Ha! Look at me. I have been married to the same guy for 50 years.”, and Auntie Eunice said: “Well, that’s your fault!”.

I would just like to speak as well to my colleague Meka Whaitiri’s Supplementary Order Paper 205. It is really good to hear that she has spoken to Alan Hāronga, the chair of the Wī Pere Trust, about the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). We thought it may have a few concerns about the SOP—in other words, the SOP says that people should be able to go to the Māori Land Court rather than the High Court. There are a number of reasons why we believe that, and the first and the most obvious reason is that the cost of going to the High Court is quite prohibitive to your everyday whānau who want to challenge something, whereas, in terms of the cost of going to the Māori Land Court, I believe that filing an application there comes to something like $50 plus GST. So it is quite within the reach of everyday whānau to be able to file an application in the Māori Land Court, the difference being that in the High Court you get a speedier decision, and, as Meka has said, Alan Hāronga told her that the High Court is the appropriate court for commercial expertise.

So the balance is between getting a speedy judgment in the High Court but at a higher cost that may put the cost of going to court out of the reach of people, or having a slower process in the Māori Land Court but whānau being actually able to afford to do it. So that is the argument that is in discussion here, and, obviously, we on this side of the Chamber prefer that all whānau actually have access to the court. Hence we believe that the Māori Land Court is the most appropriate court to be in the bill. Hence Meka Whaitiri has suggested that the Māori Land Court is the most appropriate court, rather than the High Court.

Second, I would like to speak to Minister Flavell’s SOP 234, which is an amendment to the Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act 2015. We support this SOP. It is a very minor amendment to the original Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act of 2015. It was just something that was overlooked, and the explanatory note in the SOP actually explains things really well. Under the Māori Fisheries Act 2004 Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd is able to recognise an iwi organisation for the purposes of receiving fisheries assets as the mandated iwi organisation. Unfortunately, when the Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act was passed, or before it was passed, the mandated iwi organisation for Te Rarawa was a charitable trust named Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa. It was the intention of Te Rarawa iwi for the mandated iwi organisation status of the charitable trust to be transferred to its post-settlement governance entity.

But that did not actually happen in the Act, so this SOP is setting out to resolve that issue for Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa. So it is actually recognising Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa as the mandated iwi organisation for Te Rarawa iwi, and this SOP applies that retrospectively to the Te Rarawa Claims Settlement Act. So those of us on this side support that minor adjustment to that previous Act.

I just want to take a brief call on Part 1 of the Māori Purposes Bill and recognise that the Minister, in introducing it, was, I guess, trying to support the aspirations of the Wī Pere Trust, to ensure that in moving from a trust to a board structure with body corporate status and limited liability, it was actually taking away the accountability to the Minister and introducing more accountability to shareholders. So that is the first thing.

Part 1 makes a provision to reduce the number of board members from seven to five. In the Māori Affairs Committee we discussed, quite strongly, these transitional aspects of confirming board members, which we accepted. However, when the bill was introduced it proposed that the quorum to consider matters needed to be only two members, and we had a concern about that. We thought that the threshold of two was too low, and that, for the sake of assurance, if we had the transition from seven to five board members to take the Wī Pere Trust through in this manner, it would be better to lift the quorum to three instead of two. That was accepted across the select committee.

We think it is an improvement. There was a high level of scepticism in any whānau trust or trust of that nature to leave such big decisions to a potential quorum of two people. In reality that may not have occurred, but we needed to be sure, within the context of the bill, that we were addressing this issue in a way that listened to some of the concerns of those who presented at the select committee.

I wanted to ask the Minister, in terms of the matters that were raised by Meka Whaitiri and her proposed amendment to clause 9 in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 205, should the next bill proceed to Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill, whether the context of the SOP still remains valid. It is an important question to ask, because when the Wī Pere bill was introduced at the select committee we were all of the understanding that it was preceding Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill and had some of the amendments that we might expect in Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill.

In the event that issues of linear descent are considered—and, again, my colleague Meka Whaitiri has put the argument to the House that the best court, with jurisdiction and knowledge and experience, to consider those matters is the Māori Land Court—what happens if we accept that these types of issues can go to the High Court? The things that were, I guess, raised as a matter of course around taking issues to the High Court was cost in itself and the prohibitive nature of that. We believed that that court had limited knowledge and experience to consider these issues of whakapapa, and the Māori Land Court was more qualified to do this and had the opportunity, I think, to show some understanding around these provisions within the broader context of linear whakapapa descent as it relates to Māori land interests.

The only other thing that I would add at this stage is that the separation of corpus lands and other lands was a very important separation. During the submission process a lot of people who had connections to the Wī Pere Trust were concerned that there was a prospect that the trust might sell papakāinga land. Again, it was not until we went through the select committee process, when it was made very clear and provided for in the schedules, that the corpus lands, which are these lands that many shareholders had the most concern about, were being separated out and could not be, I guess, impacted on in the same way as other lands that had been accumulated by the trust.

With that understanding in mind, I think it was helpful to go right through the select committee process to ensure that we were applying some rigour to the concerns of beneficiaries or descendants in this area and to give this process an assurance that we were trying to address the valid concerns that were raised.

One other thing—and it would be helpful for the Minister if he could take a call—is to ask just what steps he went through to assure himself that the transitional tax provisions were robust enough to ensure that what was asked for by the Wī Pere Trust could be delivered on. I note that this is a whole new area and we received a bit of advice from officials, but it would be good to get clarity from the Minister on that.

I seek leave for the Māori Purposes Bill to be debated as one question.

Leave is put for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 and 2, schedule, and clauses 1 and 2