Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill

I move, That Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill seeks to ensure that the laws governing Māori land work better for whānau by making practical and technical changes to reduce the complexity and compliance requirements that Māori encounter when they engage with the courts about whenua Māori. Te Ture Whenua Maori Act seeks to facilitate the retention, use, development, and control of Māori land as taonga tuku iho. The bill amends the Act to improve the process for succeeding to interests in Māori land and to provide a new tikanga-based dispute resolution process. It enables the Māori Land Court to deal with a wider range of matters relating to whenua Māori, ensures the remedies available to the court are practical and effective, and enhances Māori housing tenure. Some minor and technical changes are also included.

The Government listened to the problems experienced by Māori land owners navigating and complying with the Act and getting involved in decisions about their whenua. They didn’t want wholesale reform; so what we’ve done is introduce a targeted set of changes to the existing Act that will better support Māori land owners to connect with their whenua, establish their governance structure, and manage and utilise their whenua for the next generation.

I’d like to thank the Māori Affairs Committee for highlighting in their report some of the other barriers raised by whānau in their submissions. I’ve asked officials to look into these issues as part of further policy work to look at the potential for further regulatory changes to remove even more barriers for whānau.

This bill is not the only support being provided to whānau. The bill sits alongside our Government’s Whenua Māori Programme, which is supporting landowners to connect with, govern, manage, protect, and develop their whenua. The programme has invested in on-the-ground whenua advisory services, supporting landowners to develop the skills and access the services they need to realise the potential of their land. It’s also providing landowners with easier access to information and resources to inform their decisions about how to utilise their whenua. We launched the Tupu website, which has got a huge uptake and is a positive tool for Māori land owners. It will deliver modernised Māori Land Court services and systems that will support the efficient operation of the court.

I introduced the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Māori) Amendment Bill at the end of February 2020 to address issues whānau have been raising for years about the issues associated with the rating of Māori land. Targeted amendments to public works legislation will be introduced when this is possible, given the impact of the COVID-19 response on the House’s schedule.

I want to thank members and the work of the Māori Affairs Committee, and their consideration of this bill. I’d like to also thank everyone who provided feedback. The select committee received 73 submissions from individuals, members of the judiciary, Māori trusts and organisations, iwi organisations, and legal organisations. I’m pleased to note that there was wide-ranging support for the bill. I understand the submissions were helpful in identifying improvements to the bill, and the committee has recommended changes which improve clarity and effectiveness. Thank you.

Some of the recommended changes include that the Māori Land Court’s powers to grant injunctions be limited to Māori land and Māori reservations, removing the proposed extension of the court’s powers to include issuing injunctions over general land owned by Māori. This would avoid land held by post-settlement governance entities being included in this category. The committee recommended that the Māori Land Court have the power to determine applications about the performance of an easement. The Māori Land Court already considers applications to establish, modify, or cancel an easement that involves both Māori freehold and general land. On that basis, the bill should be amended to allow applications to be heard by either the District Court or the Māori Land Court if the application wholly relates to Māori freehold land or relates to Māori freehold land and other land.

The bill clarifies the lifetime rights surviving spouses or partners can receive upon the death of their spouse or partner who was a Māori land owner. It also clarifies the lifetime rights to which the whānau of a deceased person is entitled where the tikanga of the relevant hapū or iwi determines that there is no relationship of descent. Mindful of the administrative burden that these new provisions will place on trusts, the committee recommended that the registrar of the Māori Land Court be required to record the new categories of occupation and income rights for surviving spouses and partners and whānau. Thank you for that suggestion.

The bill expands the scenarios where the Māori Land Court can appoint experts in tikanga as additional members of the court. The committee accepted the recommendation from submitters that the knowledge and experience of tikanga Māori or whakapapa experts as additional members should be a relevant contribution to proceedings.

The bill provides for a new, free tikanga-based dispute resolution process that would provide a practical mechanism for whānau to resolve disputes out of court. This is a new phenomenon, but I think the intent is simply that we do no more harm to the fabric of whānau connections, because it’s a difficult area. On the committee’s recommendation, the bill now clarifies that, while judges can both refer issues to mediation and act as mediators, the same judge cannot act as a mediator on an issue arising from a matter they referred to mediation.

The committee reviewed the provisions relating to the right of first refusal, and the bill now clarifies that, when notifying members of the preferred classes of alienees, the seller or donor must make reasonable efforts to locate their addresses. Notice must be published on an internet site to which members have free access and on which members are reasonably likely to learn of the proposed alienation. The committee also recommended that a seller or donor should be able to approach the Māori Land Court for direction about the steps they need to take to satisfy requirements for adequate notice of the right of first refusal for sale or gift of Māori land.

A significant proportion of whenua is inaccessible to owners because it is landlocked, and whānau cannot unlock its potential for either use or development. The owners of landlocked land may apply to the Māori Land Court for an order granting reasonable access, subject to certain criteria, and the bill expands the criteria for the benefit of whānau.

The Māori Land Court has the power to impose charges on Māori land for the cost of surveys, which exposes the risk of alienation from the land if owners cannot meet the costs of the charges. To strengthen the retention of Māori land, the committee advised that, while the Māori Land Court should be able to continue to order the survey of Māori land, no charge may be imposed on the land for the survey costs.

The committee also suggested further amendments, which were minor and technical in nature, including making the necessary amendments to the regulations. A number of these amendments will facilitate the process of modernising court services and ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose so they can use and engage with the Act today, but, more importantly, utilise their whenua.

I acknowledge the members of the Māori Affairs Committee for their hard work, especially in this area, because it’s a contentious area. Given the difficulty of working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, their commitment to make sure that this bill progressed through its order of business is a welcome relief for many of those Māori land owners waiting for these changes.

I look forward to constructive debate in the House during the committee of the whole House stage. This will provide a really good opportunity for each of the members of the Māori Affairs Committee to identify the real-time issues that Māori land owners are facing and how that will be fixed by these proposals.

The bill will better support whānau to connect to their whenua, and I hope that it receives widespread support. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I’m very privileged to stand and speak on Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill in the second reading and I thank the Minister for Māori Development for her comprehensive speech just then around what the bill is set up to do.

So, although this side is going to be supporting the bill through to the committee stage, I just was a little bit disappointed that a hand was not reached out to this side of the House from the Government benches for us to work together on a more comprehensive Te Ture Whenua Māori bill, something that could pull together all the other bills that are coming through the House. It would come through the select committee and something that would be very comprehensive, very similar to the one that was put forward by the last Government and Māori Party in coalition, because it covered many, many areas. I feel that this particular bill has taken little bits out of there and put it into this succession bill, and I think that, you know, we could have actually done a really excellent job on this bill by bringing together a comprehensive Te Ture Whenua Māori bill. I think that, you know, the opportunity has been missed and we’re going to have a whole lot of other little bills that will end up making it up. It’ll be quite fragmented when it should all be singing out of the same—let’s say—amendment bill book sheet.

So I just have some comments around some parts of the bill that I found to be—you know, could be quite contentious because we’ve had issues of this in our whānau, and these are the new rules on succession—succession from whāngai. So a few years ago in our whānau, we had a whāngai who wanted to succeed to land—to our Māori land that belonged to our whānau—saying that he was a whāngai. We went back through the history books and our whakapapa to find out just whereabouts this whāngai came in and who did we know in the whānau—and we pulled together groups of kaumātua to find out whether or not this person had a legal right or a right within the whānau to claim whāngai status for land and his claim to our whānau land.

It caused big, big ructions because not only could he succeed to our lands as a whānau, he could also succeed to his mother’s land who wasn’t one of his whānau. And even the person that he said was one of our whānau actually was another whāngai. So you see how the whole whāngai system kind of goes from there—it jumps and jumps and jumps—and we ended up having to take this to the Māori Land Court and have a debate with the Māori Land Court on his status as whāngai since our kuia and kaumātua could not hand on heart say that this particular man was a true whāngai of our whānau. I think that, when it comes to succession of whāngai, there is a gap within this bill that we will most probably debate—I would 100 percent say that we will debate or I’ll debate it in the committee of the whole House—to tighten that area up, because as children of our parents and our grandparents, we have a mother and a father that we can succeed to on their lands; so mine is Ngāti Porou and on my mother’s side, it’s Whanganui Awa and Rangitāne in the Wairarapa. But, if I was a whāngai, I also have a right through blood, through blood, to also succeed to my birth parents’ lands as well.

So that to me is an unfair advantage. And so I think that loop around whāngai needs to tighten down a bit more so there is no unfair advantage when it comes to whāngai. All of this has been driven by a big row that happened within our whānau around whāngai and whāngai status. And when they say that, you know, it will be the kaumātua or the iwi or the hapū that will determine who was the whāngai, if that doesn’t happen, it could go to the Māori Land Court and they could make that decision. So what if they, as happened with our whānau, made a decision and it was not actually supported within the kuia and the kaumātua of our family? So, in our family, our decisions as kaumātua and kuia—they were actually lost and the Māori Land Court didn’t even listen to them. So I just have a little bit of concern around that, and I had been talking to my colleagues on this side of the House about that and said I am going to bring it up in the committee of the whole House.

The other area around landlocked lands: now, we talked about this at the select committee, and especially one particular area—and there must have been thousands of hectares of land, Māori land, landlocked land in this country—but one particular area of note was Mōkai Pātea, which is Taihape. They have lands that sit in behind Ngamatea Station—and I can’t remember the other station on the other side—but they are landlocked, and in here it talks about reasonable access, and it does define it, but at the end of the day, it will actually be determined by the actual farm owners in the front. Will they give access? Will they give access through reasonable access? What is that? They will interpret that, because legislation is all very well, but at the end of the day, when it comes to enactment on the ground, it is all about interpretation.

Landowners at the front of these landlocked lands will take that interpretation to the very nth. No matter what the clauses are in the bill, they will take it to the very nth. I have seen it. I’ve been on Ngamatea Station. I’ve looked across into the Mōkai Pātea lands—they have beautiful bushlands in there—and the only way that they can get in there to actually have economic development, and that’s hunting, is by helicopter. Not everybody, not every farmer can afford a helicopter ride into their landlocked lands. So I think that needed to be tightened up a bit more, around the road access with those owners at the front of those landlocked lands. So I think we need to tighten that down a bit, I believe, to make this bill more meaningful to whānau, to hapū, to iwi who are owners of landlocked lands. There is a whole piece of legislation around what is a landlocked land, who can have it? Can you prove ahi kā, etc., etc.? And that is fine, that is fine. But my biggest concern is: will those owners at the front of the landlocked lands give access, based on reasonable access?

So those are just a couple of areas of this bill that I have had concerns about and will look forward to having that debate around, especially when we look at lands that actually are ripe for forestry, which is where New Zealand First is at. Landlocked lands cannot be put into forestry if they can’t get access to it. Even if they fly in all of the plants and plant them, you’ve still got to get those logs out. The most effective way of doing that is to truck them out; and there are jobs as well.

So, as I said, we are going to support this bill right through, but I just want some of the issues that I have outlined here today debated in the committee of the whole House. I think that I was disappointed we weren’t brought on board with the Minister—a hand out to say, “Come on board, let’s have a bit of a kōrero about this, what is it going to look like?”, because some of the things in this bill actually come out of the bill that we had in the last sitting, and because it is so comprehensive and covers every single aspect of Te Ture Whenua right through to the end and doesn’t leave any stone unturned.

So, as I said at the start of my contribution today, we support this bill. We want to see whānau, and hapū, and iwi thrive on their lands. We want to see them build on their lands, and grow their economy on their lands. We just want to make sure that the bill that is being presented to them is a bill that is strong, it has very few—if not no—gaps in it, and that everybody benefits from it from within the whānau. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to talk on this bill, which has been a long time coming. We have been looking for changes in our Ture Whenua Māori for a very long time, and actually very pleased to see the Minister usher this through the House at its second reading.

There is a great desire for Māori to be able to utilise their underutilised Māori land, and this bill actually frees that up. It also frees up the Māori Land Court to be able to deal with some things that normally would be quite a big, laborious process—anything that streamlines the process for Māori to be able to access their land and develop it should be encouraged. That’s exactly what this bill does, and so I commend it to the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, and thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, the law that this bill seeks to address, Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, is actually a really important Act of our Parliament. With the amount of land that’s gone to address Treaty claims for Māori, there’s a huge opportunity, and I think there’s about 5 to 7 percent of all land in New Zealand that comes under this Act. So there’s a huge opportunity for the legislative arrangements to be such that enhances the potential of this important asset for the Māori community of New Zealand.

This amendment bill that we’re discussing today, essentially, seeks to reduce the complexity and the compliance burdens that Māori face when they’re interacting with the courts or with the Government over issues of Māori land. It’s actually really important to get that right so that Māori can focus on productive use, getting the most out of their land, and getting the returns as required to improve the iwi, the hapū, and the people of their communities.

So we do support this on this side of the House. The select committee did make a number of recommendations, and I would like to acknowledge all of those on the select committee: the chair, Rino Tirikatene, but all select committee members. I have fond memories of that select committee. I miss the kai very much, but I’m very happy to call the Education and Workforce Committee my new home.

The select committee duly heard a number of submissions on this bill and worked very hard, along with the officials, and I’d like to do a special shout out to the officials, who waded through those submissions, made a number of specific recommendations, most of which, actually, were incorporated into the bill that we’re discussing today.

So some of those changes were about clarifying the meanings, making sure that there’s flexibility over successions, and my colleague Jo Hayes referred to one of those flexibilities around succession to whāngai versus whānau. We look forward to debating that in the committee of the whole House and to just tightening that up, because the issue of whāngai is actually one that needs to be addressed. Also, there are changes so that judges who are involved in court proceedings cannot also act in those proceedings where they’ve been mediators. I think that’s just addressing some conflicts of interest in those circumstances.

Look, what we would have liked to have seen in this bill is—you know, winding the clock back, the previous National Government, along with the Māori Party, did a lot of work in the Te Ture Whenua Māori space, and we would have liked to have seen that some of those changes, in a bipartisan fashion, were incorporated into this legislation today, because it is important for Māori and Māori land owners that these kinds of laws are enduring, and we saw in the previous Government a whole bunch of failings with this legislation. We sought to address that, it was in the select committee stage, and then the new Parliament came through, and we would have appreciated a hand out to the Opposition to reach across the aisle to make sure that these changes are in fact enduring throughout the life of Māori land owners and their successors, which this bill also incorporates.

So, look, I just want to reflect on the massive opportunity that this bill presents. If we get it right—and the Ministry for Primary Industries has stated this—the opportunity for this country is $8 billion, most of which will go to the Māori communities throughout New Zealand. If we get it right and there is streamlining of court proceedings and dealing with successions, that is worth a massive $8 billion to the Māori economy. We on this side of the House have made it very clear that we want to see the Māori economy improve, and that is what we look forward to debating in the committee of the whole House, in terms of how we can feed some of those recommendations from the previous Parliament into this bill to make it more impactful for the Māori community in New Zealand.

So that is it. We commend this bill to the House at this stage, and we look forward to the debate in the committee of the whole House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Disputes Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill. I would just like to acknowledge the Minister for Māori Development, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for bringing this bill to the House. It is really a privilege to take this very short call in support of this bill and the practical and technical changes that will reduce the complexity and compliance requirements that Māori encounter when they engage with the courts around their Māori land.

I would just like to reiterate the words of the Minister in her opening address to us this morning: that this Government listened to the problems experienced by Māori land owners navigating and complying with the Act and getting involved in decisions about their whenua. And I think that’s the key thing for me when I think about the land, the whenua, that I’m connected to in the Hokianga—a large block of 3,000 hectares with multiple ownership. Many people come and have discussions about that land, who’s succeeded, who hasn’t, and it often creates a lot of tension and argument for whānau that really shouldn’t be happening, because when we connect to our land we connect to our whakapapa, and we have our place and our identity which we can embrace.

This is a really sensible bill, and I’m really pleased to support it. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill, the general intent of and direction of which we’ve been in support of for a long time. In fact, I recall the Hon Chris Finlayson telling me that in his term, once he’d been handed his portfolios, he said to the Prime Minister, John Key, “I want to have a run at Ture Whenua. I want to sink my teeth into Ture Whenua.” And the Prime Minister said, “Yep, OK, go ahead. Have a run at it.” And so he did, and he did a whole body of work that brought it to—it was already done before we came to this bill. And it just strikes me that sometimes you’ve got to go backwards to go backwards—is what strikes me—because so much work was already done, and we had this through to committee stage, and then we’ve sort of needed to go backwards to substantively come back to what we have here today. It doesn’t mean that we won’t support it, but it seems like there’s a whole body of work that was done that was good work that maybe has been pushed aside, although I can see some parts of it that have carried through into this bill.

The committee did have 40 submissions—33 organisations, a wide range of individuals—and covered a large number of areas. I won’t relitigate what my colleague Jo Hayes has gone over in much greater detail than I will, but I do want to particularly talk to the landlocked Māori land, as we see that as still being unrequited. We can still see challenges with that.

On the counter side to that, I do want to talk to a particularly good part of the bill, and that is the ability for the Māori Land Court to change some of the designations of Māori land—changing Māori customary land to Māori freehold land, determining owners or the classes of owners of Māori customary land. I think this is very useful, particularly up in the Far North, up in Northland, where we know there are large areas of Māori land that are unproductive and unable to be used, and part of our goal with Te Ture Whenua, in our hands, was to “unlock” that potential. But there were challenges with title. There were challenges with what the rating implications would be, and I throw out a note of thanks to John Carter, who has done some good work around rating and Māori land in the Far North so that that Māori land could come back into productivity without the fear and consequence of having large rate demands behind it. I think, legislatively, this helps that process, in that it does without consequence allow Māori customary land to be re-designated.

So, again, our thrust to this bill is that we’re in support of it. We were in support of it, of course, when it was in Chris Finlayson’s hands. I want to acknowledge the body of work he did and the additions that have been brought forward through the select committee here, and I hope we can continue to move forward with the intent of this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I think I’ll be the fourth person in a row to say it’s a pleasure to stand and speak to Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill. I do want to start by acknowledging the Minister, Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for this piece of legislation and for progressing it through to the House, which seems at this point to have unanimous support. I really acknowledge the significance of that. I remember the debates in the last term of Parliament over the previous Government’s attempt to make these reforms. Those debates were long and heartfelt because there was a huge amount of confusion and fear within the communities that the legislation that had been put up by the previous Government was actually going to undermine the protection and tikanga processes for Māori. This piece of legislation has not had that response, and while I heard from a previous member from the National Party that they would have liked to have seen a comprehensive bill, I actually think the smoothness of the progress of this bill shows the wisdom of taking a more constrained process and stepping through this work, because it is so complex and so contentious, and the link between the people and the land is so essential to being that taking it in its whole, I think, was proven to not be a smart strategy. I think this approach has shown its value.

The Greens are very happy to be supporting it. The heart of this piece of legislation is trying to ensure that Māori land is retained in Māori ownership and that the law is fit for purpose for managing Māori land. Part of doing that is ensuring that a tikanga approach applies to succession of land interests by anyone other than direct descendants, while protecting life interests of a surviving spouse. It’s also introducing a new mediation process for disputes as a voluntary alternative to court processes. It’s about enabling those difficult conversations to be supported and to happen early and with less cost, which, surely, is to the benefit of everyone?

It modernises the powers and jurisdictions of the Māori Land Court and gives new powers to court registrars to handle minor, non-contested administrative matters. It makes it simpler for the Māori Land Court to turn Māori land into Māori customary land where the land was Māori customary land before it was called Crown land, and that being on the request of the Minister responsible for the land in question. It clarifies the process for notifying people with the right of first refusal where Māori freehold land is alienated, and some other changes.

I will note that this, for the Green Party, sits alongside the noting that there is more work to be done in this area. For us, we have long campaigned around reforms to the Public Works Act in support of the cry for not one acre more, and ensuring that we strengthen the protections for Māori land from compulsory State acquisition. That is work that flows on and supports these changes today that we look forward to seeing realised, as well as the growing of the funding—which has started—for papakāinga and Māori development of the land, and as we’ve heard about from other speakers, the unlocking of the potential and the productivity of Māori land to support the people. Though I do just have to say, as a Green, that I think the way that that idea has been presented in this House has missed the sense of the inherent productivity of the land in itself in its untouched state. Our environment, when it is well supported, keeps us all alive and able to function even without physical or economic development. That is the ground that we need for everything. It’s on that note, the Greens are very happy to be supporting this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As we’ve heard today, National does support this bill, but, as we’ve also heard, we are very disappointed about the limited scope of its provisions. We know that most Māori land is in regions that are crying out for new opportunities, more jobs, and a reason for Māori to be able to return to the land. Reform of the Act has the potential to make a real difference in land use in those regions, and a real difference for future prosperity for people and communities. We want Māori land owners to have greater autonomy over their land while ensuring that whenua Māori is protected for future generations. This bill is the first step in much-needed reform to make sure laws that govern Māori land work better for whānau, to make sure that the complexity and compliance requirements are reduced, and particularly when Māori have to go to court about their land. But it’s only a first step, and we believe that much more work is needed to unlock the potential of Māori land for economic development. This bill is, basically, tinkering around the edges, and it’s a real missed opportunity.

As we’ve also heard, the whole issue of Māori land is complex, and the 1993 Act has been amended a significant number of times, but this is another minor amendment. Back in 2014, the Ministry for Primary Industries had a study that showed that 85 percent of Māori land was either undeveloped or underdeveloped, and that increasing the productivity of that land would lead to billions of dollars for Māori and the regions. Māori need those jobs, Māori need that productivity, and Māori need that financial return. National believes that the present act stymies development and it needs to be rethought and revisited. Following that Ministry for Primary Industries’ work, National and the Māori Party rewrote that Act with the aim of providing opportunity for Māori, if they choose, and to release the potential of the land. That was the Hon Chris Finlayson, and he worked with the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell, and they went back to fundamental principles and brought comprehensive reform to the House, and that went through all the process of select committee and it was being debated in the committee of the whole House when the Government changed.

I believe that was another wasted opportunity, but this bill does incorporate the work that Chris Finlayson and Te Ururoa Flavell did at the time. The new rules on succession were, basically, taken out of National bills, and the new Part 3A, which provides a mechanism for alternate dispute resolution, has also been extracted from that bill. So we’re pleased about that, but we’re deeply disappointed that other issues have not been attempted to be attached, particularly things like landlocked lands. We’ve heard about them today. That’s a major problem, and it hasn’t been tackled comprehensively here.

I’d just like to go through a few of the things that the select committee did in terms of changes. We made quite a lot that were minor and technical, but there were some important changes. For example, the bill will allow simple and uncontested application for the transfer of Māori land to descendants to be processed through a Māori Land Court registrar rather than a full hearing. Now, in the original bill, when it came through, applicants needed to request the use of a registrar to go through the process, but the select committee made changes so that applicants no longer need to request a registrar; they get one by default, unless they request to be heard by a judge. So that’s going to make it an easier process.

We also clarified the meaning of “simple and uncontested”, just to make that very clear. We also made changes so that there was more flexibility over the succession between whakapapa, biological descendants, and whāngai—people adopted in Māori customary practice—on land succession matters. We extended the Māori Land Court jurisdiction to hear certain matters related to Māori land which were generally handled in other courts, and I think this is a good initiative because it will mean that Māori Land Court judges will be able to have a better use of their understanding of Te Ao Māori with these cases when it affects Māori land. We also introduced an obligation for owners of Māori freehold land who wish to sell it to make reasonable efforts to locate the addresses of the classes of people who had been given the right of first refusal to buy that land.

And, finally, we’ve given the court the power to order a survey of Māori land, however—and this is significant. Unlike on previous occasions, the cost will not fall on the Māori land, and could no longer lead to owners losing their land because they couldn’t afford the cost of a survey. This has been a terrible thing that’s happened a lot in the past. Māori families, whānau, have lost their land under these circumstances, and it’s caused enormous pain and disruption over the years.

This bill is useful. It’s useful because Māori land and the regions are crying out for opportunities, more jobs, and the reason for Māori to return to their land, and these reforms will make a difference. But National still believes that significant reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 is well overdue. Significant reform would make a real difference to the use of Māori land, especially in the regions, and to the future prosperity of people and communities. So, as a first step forward in this reform of Māori land, National supports the bill.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa. Actually, can I thank the Hon Nicky Wagner, who is a member of the Māori Affairs Committee, for walking us through the amendments that were agreed by the committee, along with Jo Hayes, who are here in the House. I just want to acknowledge the work of that committee.

This piece of legislation is a collaboration between Te Puni Kōkiri and the Ministry of Justice. Essentially, it is about connecting Māori with their whenua through whakapapa and also through whāngai. I want to highlight that the new disputes process—and, obviously, it was something that Jo Hayes chose to speak quite extensively about in her contribution—is, I think, incredibly important, because what we are talking about is Māori on their whenua being able to govern and protect that whenua, manage that whenua, and develop that whenua for whānau. So this bill is incredibly important, and I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s interesting hearing the discussion about this bill that we are debating this afternoon under urgency because I heard the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) quoted a couple of times and I just searched up and reflected on some of those reports that indeed have been discussed today. I was the Minister at the time, when I released a report on 4 April 2013 that indicated there was $8 billion of potential with unproductive Māori land in New Zealand. That’s a massive number. What’s lost in translation, hasn’t been talked about today, is that to return that $8 billion in terms of earnings and opportunity, it would require $3 billion of capital, because obviously infrastructure is important on Māori land. Fertiliser, new grass species, whether it’s horticulture, you’ve got to set up an orchard—it comes back to one fundamental thing often, and that’s water. And that’s a debate that no doubt we’ll have in due course with the Resource Management Act fast-track bill that will be coming back in here soon. There would be 3,600 jobs created, and I would think that that number is a bit light, particularly with some of this land that has the potential to grow very valuable horticulture products, and we know that there’s more job creation involved there.

Then there was another report that I released when I was Minister, that was focused on Northland and Kaikohe, and that report came about in May 2016, where I asked MPI to drill into the detail about Northland and look at that opportunity around Kaikohe. That’s quite topical at the moment; I’m looking over at Duncan Webb, and he’s nodding. So in a 50-kilometre radius around Kaikohe, there are about 4,000 small parcels of Māori land. That is significant, and that’s 84,000 hectares of land that’s mostly unproductive around Kaikohe—so, very large numbers and massive opportunity. This bill goes some way to allowing that opportunity to come along, but it doesn’t go as far as what the National Party would have liked to have seen. I want to acknowledge Chris Finlayson when he was Treaty settlements Minister for the work that he did, because he really kicked off the reform that we’re talking about today, along with the Hon Pita Sharples; then it was transferred over to Te Ururoa Flavell, who took it over and then it got bogged down a bit, I think, with the iwi leaders group. It did come in eventually into a shape and form into this Parliament; then the election came along, then it sort of got turfed out of the Government’s Order Paper and agenda. Now it’s back to where it is today.

So I think there’s going to be more questions asked when we get into the significant part of this debate, the committee stage, because we’re only talking about the second reading right now. There are some important questions that need to be asked of the Minister when she is in the chair: why this bill couldn’t be widened out, because it is quite narrow in scope. One important aspect that I picked up in this bill is that it will enable judges of the Māori Land Court to mediate without the need for a formal court hearing. In my mind, I think that’s going to be very important. That should help to speed up the process. So I see in this bill there are some important aspects of it that we support, but we just feel there’s an opportunity missed and that it could have gone further. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I’m not allowed to take too long and I won’t, but—ah!—the comments from over the other side of the House: absolute crock of rubbish. The bill that they chucked up over the last term was one of the most atrocious pieces of legislation ever seen. You go up and down the electorate—any Māori electorate—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume her seat. I’ve just reflected on her beginning comments. If there is any suggestion that there is a restriction on a member—

💬 Nicola Willis: Baa!

💬 SPEAKER: Yes, well the member behind Kiritapu Allan had better not laugh too loud at that noise. It wasn’t a comment from Nicola Willis. The member is not restricted and she should not indicate to the House that she has been.

And I feel absolutely no restrictions. This is a great bill. The last bill in this House was a crock of rubbish, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Given the last speech, you’ll see that I’m not really qualified to speak on this bill! But I will expand on why. So now I’ve got to expand on why. I could tell that Kiritapu Allan came from the East Coast because I very well remember in the last Parliament most of the objection to that bill came from the East Coast too, and, of course, that’s one of the reasons that I’m not qualified to speak on this bill. It’s a hugely political issue, this, and I fully understand it, coming from a family that’s been in New Zealand for a long, long time, and when you read the title of this bill, it’s about disputes resolution, succession and related matters, and I know all about the challenges that that creates for us.

But I just did want to mention an issue that Jo Hayes raised earlier, because it does concern a large patch in my electorate, and that’s the area that Mōkai Pātea own in the back of Taihape. It is a very cold place, I’d have to tell Kiritapu Allan so she wouldn’t be that keen to come down there! It’s not often warm there, but the Mayor of Rangitīkei, Andy Watson, has raised this issue a number of times, and I know he submitted very strongly and so did the Rangitīkei District Council, on behalf of Mōkai Pātea, actually, on the previous bill that came to the House on this very issue, because they do own a large piece of land in there, they don’t have access to it, and that’s another story of politics—internal politics that only they will understand. That’s the reason this issue is so complicated, and it’s also the reason that this bill will be back in the House again, and I’ll bet it’s not too long before it is.

It is a challenge that we need to get to the bottom of in New Zealand—the reasons for this bill. And this bill touches on some of the issues and it does start to resolve some of them. None the less, it’s a matter that has to be dealt with in the future, otherwise we are going to end up with large sections of our community who are unjustly precluded from, I guess, benefiting from both their heritage, their historic connections, their succession or lack of it, and the ability to utilise their assets for what they want to utilise them for. So I think, for that reason, I will certainly support this bill for where it’s got to, but I do think there’s got to be an enduring and long-term solution to this issue, and I think it’s got to be resolved as quickly as possible. Otherwise, we’re just losing so much opportunity in New Zealand. That’s my contribution, Mr Speaker—I kept out of the politics.

Ka pai ki te kōrero e pā ana ki te pire whakatikatika i Te Ture Whenua Maori. Ehara au i te mea katakata nātemea ko tēnei take he mea tino whakahirahira ki a Aotearoa. Kei te tautoko au i tēnei pire ki Te Whare.

[I am happy to speak on this Ture Whenua Maori amendment bill. This is no laughing matter, because this is very important for the country. I support this bill in the House.]

Bill read a second time.