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 third time.

It’s with pride that I stand here today with this important piece of legislation. Māori land law is really difficult and anyone who tries to change Te Ture Whenua will experience a challenging time. But we want to improve the wellbeing and prosperity for Māori to create a thriving Aotearoa. As Minister for Māori Development it was important to ensure that we had the conversation around these particular amendments with those whānau who are most impacted. That’s why the amendments that we’re proposing are of a technical nature and very specific to help some of the practical hurdles that whānau are facing in relation to their whenua.

In April 2019, Cabinet agreed that there were opportunities to assist and improve the system for Māori freehold land owners, and, in doing so, additional economic returns could be achieved, delivering social and cultural benefits to Māori and their whānau.

Māori freehold land owners are presented with unique challenges to developing their land, including complex rules and regulations, multiple ownership in land blocks, and alienation of Māori from their whenua with large numbers not succeeding to their land interests. We listened to landowners, we heard, and we responded and initiated work on the whenua Māori work programme. The Whenua Māori Programme is an ambitious new approach to overcome the barriers faced by landowners to accelerate intergenerational wealth and wellbeing. It includes a number of key investments made to date, including on-the-ground whenua advisory services providing facilitation, brokerage, and education to Māori freehold land owners in three focused regions, and providing landowners with easier access to up-to-date information and resources, supporting their decisions about how to use and develop their whenua; also modernisation of the Māori Land Court system. The various integrated initiatives in the Whenua Māori Programme will ensure landowners can move more easily, connect to their whakapapa and whenua, govern their land, plan for succession to it, and take up sustainable development opportunities.

Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is the primary legislation for whenua Māori, which provides the framework for Māori land tenure, supporting whānau to retain, develop, and utilise their whenua. Targeted changes contained in this bill will ensure that the laws governing Māori land will work better for whānau, by making practical and technical changes to reduce the complexity, compliance requirements, and costs that whānau and Māori land owners encounter when they engage with the Māori Land Court about their whenua.

This bill also confirms new and enhanced Māori Land Court services. The provisions of the bill will make it easier for Māori to succeed to land that they have an interest in, introducing a new process for simple and uncontested applications to be determined by the Māori Land Court Registrar, which will reduce time and costs associated with attending court and will encourage landowners to take up their interests and reconnect with their whenua. We hope that the simplification of this process will absolutely make it easier for whānau to succeed.

The bill will also provide a new free mediation service to speed up dispute resolution for whānau in accordance with their own tikanga and in a way that helps protect whānau relationships for the long term. In fact, what we’ve learnt over the period of time that we’ve engaged with whānau is that you try and rectify these issues causing as least harm as possible.

The bill will also enable the Māori Land Court judges to convene a judicial settlement conference to support and quicken the resolution of disputes, mandated in law. It will enable descendants who whakapapa to land to connect to their whenua immediately and have a say in its management.

It will also improve housing opportunities for whānau. It allows for occupation orders to be granted to beneficiaries of a whānau trust and removes obstacles to the development of papakāinga housing on Māori reservations. This all sounds so simple, but actually there are real impediments in the current law that restrict, for example, harmonising the occupation order, which currently stands at 14 years, with what the banks require in order to provide a mortgage. It also enables a lease or occupation licence to be granted for longer terms, as I’ve mentioned, which will help whānau to access the lending they need to realise their housing aspirations.

Further barriers have been raised by whānau, and we couldn’t address everything within the context of the Ture Whenua bill. Some of the work is under way. I introduced separate legislation to address issues with the rating of Māori land and targeted amendments to the public works legislation, which will be introduced as soon as practicable.

The Māori Affairs Committee has worked really hard on this bill. It’s been a contentious area of law for Māori for many, many years. But I want to commend them in their diligence and also in raising issues that have urged myself and advisers to really think about the practical impacts of the changes that we’re proposing.

Can I say briefly, in response to matters that Jo Hayes raised in the second reading of the bill, there are complex issues in relation to the way in which whāngai interact with whenua that they may be involved in. Can I say that I’m confident that the tikanga process, which we have included within the context of this bill, will enable whāngai to better engage with the whānau that they have been raised with, and where they have a connection to the whenua those matters will be observed.

Can I also thank the Te Puni Kōkiri officials who provided good advice, and the chair, Rino Tirikatene, of the Māori Affairs Committee, who has always acted fairly in ensuring members across the whole committee have been able to engage with the discussion around the changes that we’re proposing today.

I want to acknowledge the Minister and the work of the Māori Affairs Committee in considering this bill. Jo Hayes has kept us as a caucus up to date, up to speed, with the progress of this bill, and National supports this Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill.

Not having sat on the select committee, I can but perhaps give some of the background to the bill and some of the purposes of the bill. So this bill does form part of the Whenua Māori Programme, and I note the Minister mentioned in her speech that as well as the bill we are considering today, there are further bills to come. The rating of the whenua Māori amendment bill—now, that’s a local government bill and I don’t recall whether it’s had its first reading or not, but I certainly know it has been considered by our caucus. So there is a legislative programme in place which is co-led by Te Puni Kōkiri and the Ministry of Justice, the aim of which is to connect Māori with their whenua and provide Māori land owners with the tools to govern, manage, and develop their land.

One of the consequential benefits of this bill will, I understand, be to provide tenure for Māori land owners to then approach financial institutions to—as a basis to apply for a mortgage to build and develop their land. That surely has got to be a great outcome of this bill. The programme also aims to support whānau to increase the productivity of their whenua, with the goal of having the land positively affect their wellbeing and prosperity.

I mentioned the legislative reform. I just want to finish my short contribution by noting that the Hon Chris Finlayson had spent a considerable amount of time in the previous Parliament working on this very issue and had brought a bill to the House—I’m not familiar enough with this bill to make any comments at all on the similarity, but it does seem to me that the purpose of the work that the Hon Chris Finlayson did, together with Te Ururoa Flavell from the Māori Party, has the same aim as this bill. So with those brief comments, I commend the bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I stand to wholeheartedly support this, Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill, at its third reading. I was delighted to be part of the Māori Affairs Committee that examined the bill, and we had some very helpful submissions from representatives right across the motu, which have been incorporated to improve this bill.

This bill is all about, you know, just making sure that our Māori land laws help our Māori land owners do things better, more efficiently, and ultimately can help unlock a lot of the barriers, I guess, that Māori land owners face, whether it’s through various processes, through the land courts, and just the mechanisms that are available.

So I commend this bill. I commend the Minister for her work. I thank the officials from Justice and Te Puni Kōkiri, who excellently took us through our examination of the bill. This bill is going to be fantastic to assist our Māori whānau out there, and this is just one part of the Whenua Māori Programme of a whole suite of legislative changes that will be coming through that will ultimately help whakamahana the whenua—help our whānau to warm up our land and make sure that we can unleash the potential of our whenua Māori. So I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also commend this bill to the House. I’d like to make a couple of comments on Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s speech. I thoroughly enjoyed the language that she was using. It was extremely positive. It’s words that I like to see and should be used more frequently in this House—words like “reducing compliance”, words like “simplifies”, “sustainable development”, “opportunities”, “housing opportunities”, “removing obstacles”, “enabling”, “housing aspiration”, “complexity and compliance”—removal of the above—“resolution dispute systems”, “mediation programmes”, all for the benefit of this country as a whole, but particularly for Māori and the complexities relating to the landownership issues that are faced and are, you know, a hindrance to Māori development. So with those words, I commend this bill to the House.

I just want to tautoko some of the kōrero that’s gone on. I’m really pleased this has gone through, because it clarifies the position in terms of partners—particularly, Pākehā partners. There’s always a lot of controversy, sometimes, in terms of rights and who gets rights—particularly when there’s a death—and all this sort of thing that carries on, and this gives some clarification in terms of what happens in terms of partners’ rights. So I’m really pleased about that.

I’m also pleased—and a lot of people out there said this to me—that the position of whāngai is being clarified a lot more here. Whāngai is so important in terms of tikanga Māori, in terms of their positions in terms of family. What rights do they have? Of course they have rights. Maybe they don’t have the toto—or have the blood—but they have rights because they’re part and parcel of that whānau and have made contributions, and they’re just as important as anyone who has the bloodline.

The third part that I’m particularly comfortable about is that we’ve brought in mediation, because things can get a bit volatile between whānau when we’re talking about whenua and we’re talking about whenua rights—land rights. We’ve incorporated some of the mahi that we do—particularly in the industrial relations side of things—into this tikanga process when whānau get into arguments about who owns what, who gets what, etc., etc. So I’m so pleased that we’ve got the professional mediation coming in to sort things out and to clarify things.

So well done to the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, and well done to our Minister for Māori Development. Finally, we’re going to get some light at the end of the tunnel for this very, very important kaupapa. I’m very happy to support the bill. Kia ora tātou.

The Greens are proud to support Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill. Along with all of the main points that my colleagues and the Minister have put on the floor, on this bill, I particularly wanted to pick up with enthusiasm further work with the Minister to protect whenua Māori under the Public Works Act, and will continue to have those fruitful discussions about how to make sure we are protecting the small bits of whenua Māori that we have left. We commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Bill read a third time.