Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill

We get a window into how Draconian this bill is when you read the Schedule that is covered in clause 4. And I particularly want to question the Minister about the sledgehammer of clause 6 of the Schedule. Now, I’ve heard lectures from members of the Labour Party about respecting the power of general competence and councils’ capacity to be able to make decisions. Let’s read what clause 6 says: a council is able to pass a resolution. This is not the provision where a community does not want Māori seats and initiates a poll—that’s not what this clause is about. This is where a council has decided they would voluntarily like to have a poll. And they’ve passed that resolution—a democratically elected council, not because of a poll, not because of a petition, has passed the resolution and said that we want to put this to the poll. And what does clause 6 say? “The resolution ceases to have effect on the commencement date.” What sort of arrogance is it from this Parliament that a council anywhere from Kaitāia to Bluff has made a resolution, their elected representatives have passed a resolution, and this Parliament is saying—under urgency, with an electoral bill riding roughshod over electoral process—“We don’t give a stuff what you’ve decided, we know best and we’re going to overrule it.”

I challenge Labour members opposite, when did you decide to do this? We know in your manifesto at the election last year, you promised—[Interruption] Well, the member who’s a new member got elected on a mandate. Let me remind him of what he told his voters in North Harbour what his policy was.

💬 Hon Members: Northcote.

And I will read it to him—Northcote. He said this: “Labour will ensure [that] major decisions about local democracy involve full participation.” Does this clause 6 do that? This clause 6 says exactly the opposite; that he is going to vote to take away, to overrule, the decision of a council. And so my question to the Minister of Local Government: how far will you go? If any council passes any resolution in any corner of New Zealand, is this Government saying, “Well, we might just roll a bill in under urgency and overrule it.”?

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: That’s what they’re doing.

That’s exactly what they are doing. What sort of jackboot Government do you have when you propose clauses—and I’ll read it again: “The resolution [passed by council] ceases to have effect.”? Did the Minister consult with those councils whose resolution, through this clause, they are attempting to overwrite? Simple question to the Minister: has the Minister talked to the councils who have passed a resolution—not forced by a petition; that they have voluntarily decided to do—that through this clause she is proposing to overrule that local democracy in direct contradiction to Labour’s manifesto at the last election?

Then, clause 5 in Schedule 1 goes down exactly the same route—same sort of jackboot sort of approach. What clause 5 says is that even if the legal requirement has been met, the law will say the council must conduct its business on the basis that the poll and the petition never existed. What? Parliament is passing a law to pretend that something that happened didn’t happen.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: It’s a fiction.

Well, my colleague calls it a fiction, but how can any member of this House pretend that that is good lawmaking? I remind the House again, this isn’t any old law. This is electoral law. This is constitutional significance. This is the sort of things that dictators do, where they pass resolutions and say, “Even though the council passed that resolution, we now have to pretend it did not.” I seek a response from the Minister.

This is a significant clause within the bill, and given that the debates on previous clauses have been quite far-ranging, I’m very mindful in this part of the morning to ensure that we keep to the standard of debate that you have set for us, Mr Chairperson, and stick to the kaupapa of the clause.

So in relation to clause 4, there were a number of comments that have been raised. In fact, in terms of the Schedule, the Schedule sets out the transitional provisions and our intention to remove the discriminatory poll which creates an uneven playing field in terms of the way in which Māori wards and constituencies are treated, and the way in which general wards and constituencies are treated. However, the member asks whether or not consultation had happened with those councils that have been affected, and as I had referred to last night, much of the information and advice that I have received has been proactively released. So in relation to the departmental disclosure statement and external consultation, the member will note that those councils that were alerted to the provisions of this bill, and directly affected, included the Far North District Council, Gisborne District Council, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Kaipara District Council, New Plymouth District Council, Northland Regional Council, Ōpōtiki District Council, Ruapehu District Council, South Taranaki District Council, Taupō District Council, Tauranga District Council, Whangarei District Council.

In many aspects of the changes that we are trying to promote that impact on them, we gave full visibility about how it would affect their particular circumstance. So again, one of the key considerations for those nine councils who were due to hold a poll was that they needed to know what the consequent impact might be on them. They were consulted.

Of those councils who had passed a resolution in 2018 and were prevented for a number of years from re-entertaining the potential of having Māori wards, they were also notified about the impact of this bill on them, because the bill does open up—and it’s clear in the transitional provisions that a council, once this bill comes into effect, can either resolve to create Māori wards and constituencies or revoke their decision to hold Māori wards and constituencies. I suspect many will continue on the path and the journey that they have been on, because they can see the full merit of including the Māori voice around the decision-making table at a local level, and we can constructively—with Māori, with hapū, and with iwi—work in the better interests of all citizens within their community.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank the Minister for the partial explanation she has given of some points that particularly interest me. One of the things that interests me about this clause, particularly in respect of the Ruapehu District Council, is that some councils who have already gone through the process and had a referendum to throw this out, as I said earlier, have now got until May to reverse that decision. I think that puts those councils in a very difficult decision because they’ve already had a referendum overturning their decision to implement a Māori ward or Māori wards. They’ve now got the opposite occurring where they can, before May of this year, decide to reconstitute a decision that was overturned by a poll. So I think that puts them in a dangerous position.

The other interesting thing about these clauses, related to particularly the referendum and the way this is dealt with, is that if you look at Ruapehu, there’s a Māori population of around about 43 percent. If you look at the Manawatū district, there’s a Māori population of around about 16 percent. So clearly, if you’d gone to referendum in those two districts, you may well have got a different result from people who voted on the basis of purely Māori interests or of achieving a Māori ward. I don’t think that necessarily has happened, actually, and in my time in local government we certainly didn’t get that kind of feedback from our community.

So I think that there are some interesting challenges for some of the councils who have gone through this process in the last 12 months, and where they might get to as a result of this law change. The other thing that I think is unfortunate with respect to the changes in this clause is that if you look at this as a significant change to a law that’s been in place since 2001, and I think I heard the Minister say in, perhaps, her first reading speech that in fact she never liked section 9 of this law—section 9 of the Local Government Act—and didn’t like the way it was put together—

💬 Hon Member: It was her legislation.

It was legislation—I didn’t like it either, actually—passed by the Labour Government of 2001. And we’re now nearly 20 years later—in fact 20 years later—changing something that’s been unsatisfactory, in the Minister’s words, for those 20 years. So I think that having got to the point where we’ve decided it’s unsatisfactory, to rush this through with, effectively, two days’ consultation—and I accept the Minister’s explanation and I accept the reason that those councils were notified, although it’s hardly democratic to notify some people of what’s happening and not others, giving them the opportunity to forward their views. To take this out of the arena and push it through in the manner it’s being pushed through, from my perspective, is not going to heal any of the damage that was done by the very divisive process, in my opinion, that the referendum process caused.

So I think we’re going from one extreme to the other and creating the same damage at both ends. So, really, my question to the Minister is: does she expect those councils who made this decision in May last year to change their mind in May this year? Is it likely that will happen given that it was the subject of a referendum? And it may or may not have been quite decisive—and in one or two cases, it was. Also, given the vastly differing populations and make-up of those populations in various parts of our community, does she think the same result will apply in areas where we’ve got those vast differences? I don’t know the statistics around the number of people on the Māori roll as opposed to the general roll in those council areas, but probably it would be about the same percentage in every area, although I know that in the central North Island there’s a much stronger emphasis on the Māori roll—and you would know that, Mr Chair—than there is in perhaps the southern part of the Rangitīkei electorate. It’s just the way it is.

I think those questions are pretty important, and the most important one for me is: what do those councils do, the councils that have had a referendum, have overturned a decision that they made as councils—quite significant in some cases? How do they get around or justify the change they may or may not make with respect to the decision they have to make by May this year with respect to 2022?

In response to the member, Ian McKelvie, because I’ve always found him to be very fair-minded and considered in his contribution to this House, you deserve the courtesy of a response that covers the range of issues that you’ve raised.

Firstly, let me come to the point of the dilemma that councils may be in because they have perhaps gone through the process of holding a poll, clearly the poll delivered a particular outcome, and—if I understood the dilemma that you’re presenting to the House—the council may feel that they may be, I guess, at odds with what the poll said if they put the resolution again. That could well be the case, but I want to come back to some of the submitters who presented at select committee, and in particular there was a submitter who participated in the mana whenua group for the Taranaki Regional Council. One of the things that she identified was that as, I guess, a community advocate for greater participation and contribution to the Taranaki Regional Council, when the question came up to them, she commented on the fact that there were a whole lot of people that came across from Hastings to run a campaign against Māori wards and constituencies within her community. She found that quite abhorrent because that was actually not a view reflected from people within her own community. They had to import a whole lot of voices to amplify division.

But, if I come back to the report that the select committee—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s called free speech.

I gave the member the courtesy to listen to his contribution. I hope that member will give me the courtesy to respond. If I come back to the departmental advice that the select committee received in relation to this issue of, I guess, anxiety—that’s probably the best way that I can put it—within the community because of this issue, the advice that the committee received said that 1,043 submitters commented that removing the ability to hold binding polls on Māori wards would avoid the community division elicited through these polls. So there is clearly a sense that a poll which is a discriminatory measure, only for Māori wards and constituencies, created the type of division that wasn’t beneficial to the overall interests of the community. Submitters felt that, on the contrary, this would allow for community unity if there was an equal playing field. Some submitters were concerned that the demand for polls were driven by forces from outside the district, as in the case I’ve referred to, in which the poll is to be held.

If I think about, I guess, those entities who have long been a part of this debate and have identified just how challenging this particular issue is, I’d need not look further than Local Government New Zealand, who, the member well knows, has had a long history in this particular issue, and they said the polls have reduced complex issues of voice and representation to a simple binary voice, which, by encouraging people to take sides, damages race relations.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s called democracy.

That member says it’s called democracy, yet the sector organisation, who have had purview over this issue for at least 20 years, have said that the polls cause damage to race relations.

The other point I would note—and this is a colleague of mine who, too, can remember the time when the provisions of the Act were changed to provide for Māori wards and constituencies, and now participates on the Horizons Regional Council. The Hon Rick Barker, previous member of this House, made a very strong contribution as well: that had he known the discriminatory impact and barrier that that poll has caused to creating Māori wards and constituencies, he certainly would not have voted for it. So I think there’s been a period of reflection over what the original intent was, and then a very lucid identification of the barrier that had in fact been created, a lot of experience within communities for advocating for the kind of change that we have in Schedule 1, and that is why we need to make the changes that I’m recommending in the Schedule—the transitioning provision—so that many councils who want to get on with making the decision to create Māori wards and constituencies can do so by 2022 elections.

Coming back to the member’s point, because Rangitīkei, I think, is as fair-minded as many other communities around the place. I’m sure that they would not tolerate importing voices from outside their community to overturn legitimate interest from within the community, and that has been the experience of many communities in relation to this issue.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to make my first contribution to this debate here this morning. In particular, I would like to direct my comments to the Minister in the chair, who is somebody that I actually have respect for and have watched her career from outside this place for many years and more closely, of course, over the last six years. She talked in her latest comments to the committee about anxiety in the community over particular elements of the transitional clauses and also her experience around the considered debate that’s occurred within communities.

I would just like to reflect for a few moments in this call on that. I had the privilege of listening to the two days of submissions. It’s been well traversed how two days is appallingly insufficient, but I do want to talk about what I heard, because over those two days there were two binary views of how to interpret and make real the Treaty of Waitangi in a context of New Zealand Aotearoa today and particularly in the 2020s and beyond.

On the one side—and the Minister is right—there was a strong advocacy from some local government leaders reflecting on their individual challenges around seeking to increase Māori participation. Included in that argument were significant rūnanga representatives who said, Minister, that “This is a small first step to our view that the modern interpretation of Treaty partnership, and article 2, in particular, of the Treaty, is 50:50 representation in the context of local government representation.” They were very clear that that was their vision in terms of Treaty obligation in the modern context. The counter to that view was equally lucid and very clear-minded in their own view that this legislation was appallingly anti-democratic, did not allow for communities to reflect themselves on how best to ensure participation of all, including Māori, and many used words that this was a step towards increased separatism in this country.

I reflected deeply, listening to these conversations, Minister, and with some trepidation, because what it told me was how binary the views are, how distant the views are, and how, despite what we can say in this House about our collective understanding of Treaty obligations, the country, the communities who we represent, have significantly divergent views as to what a modern Treaty relationship looks like.

💬 Louisa Wall: Some do.

And so when—some do. Some do.

💬 Louisa Wall: The majority don’t.

Well, I think this is the test. This is very much the test around how we as a reflective Chamber hold a view as to where the country is in terms of their understanding. Now, it is my view, Minister—

💬 Louisa Wall: It’s why Hobson’s Pledge is relevant.

—and I suspect you are going to, strongly—I’d appreciate the opportunity, Louisa, to hold this view. I haven’t interrupted you. In fact, I haven’t heard when you’ve spoken recently.

So, Minister, this is a serious issue for this country. How do we progress a national conversation of understanding and reflection and appreciation of divergent views to land a comfort—a reduction of anxiety, Minister, to use your words—a comfort in what a modern Treaty relationship looks like in this country? It is it is my strong view that this bill does not move the debate forward. It does not enable people to hear the other side and actually lift their own understanding of the interests. If anything, I think it has a real risk of hardening hearts that already find the modern interpretation of the Treaty difficult. This is not just some small proportion in communities that we can feel comfortable to just wave away. These are thousands of New Zealanders who believe in democracy, believe in their community’s right to participate in these conversations, and who feel that this is running roughshod over their democratic rights.

I put it to you, Minister, that you have—from what I have seen over your remarkable tenure as an MP and Minister in this House—always sought to build on national understanding of the Treaty and its place in this country, always sought to bring communities together. That is your natural space. It is where you naturally work. You are someone who consults, who collaborates, who seeks to bring different perspectives together to enable the country to move on, because this is a unique New Zealand journey, trying to work out what a Treaty that was signed 180 years ago means in the modern context. What does article 2 mean? How do we ensure the Māori voice? What does that look like? But for it to endure, you must bring all of the country with you, Minister, and to launch this without any signalling apart from a quiet conversation to a few local government insiders that this was coming, that we have two days to submit, does harm to the national conversation.

I am sure there is confidence on your side that says that eventually the time will tick down and you will have the vote and you will get your 65, that we have taken a step forward in the national journey of understanding, of reconciliation, of enabling the Treaty to mean something and be a live document in a modern context. I argue that you are taking a step backwards because you are not bringing the country with you. The opportunity to bring them was on the table, and your argument will be “But we’ve had this conversation for years and years.” We have not had this conversation in this House, not sufficiently. We’ve not had a conversation in select committee in a way that would bring all New Zealanders to the table, feeling that they have a voice that is heard and in a participatory democracy, particularly in this House—their voice can be considered.

Instead, it is five days pushed through on the assumption that once it’s through, the rest of the country will just simply shrug their shoulders and adjust. I do not believe that’s what’s going to happen. I think, as I say, it is a disservice to the Minister’s 20-plus years of effort to try and progress a genuinely engaged national conversation around the role of the Treaty. To conclude, I look at my own community, the Tauranga City Council, well down a path of calling a poll, and that community is exceedingly agitated that that right of having that conversation has been taken off the table.

Now, to conclude, I want to share a personal reflection. I have a personal view that the level of Māori representation around local government and particularly in my city is not what it should be at all. But I want to finish with saying that this attempt by this Government to fix it with a model that does not bring New Zealand with them, that takes away the opportunity for the community to truly participate—both in the select committee process or in terms of their local community conversations—is a disservice to ensuring that Māori voice and participation occurs, grows to the level that it should be, and is respected and endures. And that, I think, is a great national tragedy.

Again, given the range of issues raised by the member Todd Muller, it really cuts to the nub of the challenge that we have before us as a Parliament and, indeed, within councils to try and bring perspectives together. That cannot be achieved at a council level if Māori are prevented from participating in local government decision-making.

But you make a salient point: how are we going to bring binary views together on significant issues which underpin the type of democracy we are? I would argue that if we do not accept that our democracy is founded on the Treaty of Waitangi, there will continue to be binary views. But if we accept that we are on a journey—and this journey is a very long journey—and that that constitutional debate must happen with all the incremental steps that we make along the way towards our destination, then we as a nation are better for it.

Coming back to Schedule 1 in the Schedule, because it seeks to insert provisions for those councils who choose to create Māori wards and constituencies, I very much would expect that those decisions will be based on their local experience and their local experience of needing to work closely with mana whenua, with Māori in their region, because there are significant, substantial challenges that require a different discourse. In having that discourse and including Māori around the decision-making table and around councils, perspective can be given towards some of the most challenging issues of our time.

We only need look back to some of the significant challenges that have been experienced through natural disasters and the way in which civil defence reach out into Māori communities. The Māori communities were very quick to put their hand up to say “We can help, and we’re here to help everybody, not just Māori.” The member experienced that, I am sure, when it came to the Matatā floods and the way in which the local marae, Kōkōhīnau, rallied around to support members across the whole community—not just Māori—because they were of their community.

Māori do not operate within a vacuum, and neither does the rest of society. We can bring those binary views together. We can bring those binary views together if we’re prepared to ensure that we remove the barriers to participation—which, I might add, is a Treaty principle—and ensure that the Local Electoral Act can be changed to even the playing field. That is what we’re seeking to do in Schedule 1.

The member continues to, I think, make very real-life statements—and I respect that—from lived experience about needing to have this conversation. I agree. I agree, but we must put actions behind the words, and the reason why these changes are going through to give effect to Māori wards and constituencies in the 2022 elections is because while the members on that side of the House may not agree, this conversation, within many regions, has been around for a very long time.

In fact, again, I come back to submitters like Andrew Judd, who made it a very significant task of his—joined by advocacy groups from his rohe—to ensure that the public were going to be educated on just how discriminatory this legislative barrier was. The fix is simple from a legislative point of view, but, again—coming back to the member’s comments—to change the hearts of people will be a journey, and it will only be achieved if people are prepared to have the right conversation.

One of the things that I found very challenging in listening to some of the submitters was that at the polar opposites of each other’s perspectives, there was a fundamental difference between interpretations of what New Zealand democracy looks like: those who absolutely believed in one person, one vote, and those who believed absolutely that the Treaty is our democracy. Somewhere in the middle, I think, is where we want to be, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve. It may not satisfy both ends of the spectrum, but it will certainly take us in the direction where I think we as a nation want to go.

I appreciate the points that the member has raised. I don’t agree with all of the perspectives on his side of the House. I do know from a legislative point of view that after 20 years of trying to give effect to Māori wards and constituencies, having a poll provision that only applies to Māori wards and constituencies and not general wards and constituencies is a barrier that now has proved insurmountable to the ability of councils to genuinely entertain including Māori voices around the decision-making table.

I firstly want to deal with and refute two claims by the Minister and then make two further points. The first is that the Minister justifies removing the vote on the basis that election debates can be divisive. I find that extraordinarily dangerous. What the Minister is saying is that—well, most of us would have witnessed the divisive vote in the United States over their presidential election. Would anybody seriously stand up in this Parliament and say, “Well, the way we’re going to resolve that is not to have an election.”? Of course not. Communities should be able to have a vote and they should be able to express a view.

Then—and this is an extraordinary issue in the range of debates around free speech—the Minister says that it’s inappropriate for people outside of a district to be able to express a view; that it’s wrong for people to travel to Nelson to either promote separate Māori seats or, for that matter, to disagree with Māori seats. Now, I agree that that should solely be a decision for the people of Nelson. But what an extraordinary, worrying comment, for a Minister of the Crown to say that somehow it is wrong if people outside of a community want to express a view and freedom of speech. Frankly, Minister, those sorts of comments give me the willies around the protection of freedom of expression in this country we share.

Now, I want to bring quite specifically to what we are doing in this Schedule. I’d like to bring the Minister’s attention to the sixth clause in the Schedule, subclause (3), and I want members of the House to think about what this law says. It says this: an electoral officer who has received a notice requiring a poll “must not give public notice of the poll”. Hang on a moment. I thought one of the things that we agreed on in this Parliament is that politicians do not direct electoral officers. There’s been quite a lot of debate in the United States about the former President wanting to direct what electoral officers do. I’m of a view that this Parliament and politicians should not be directing electoral officers, let alone directing them to do exactly the opposite of what they are required to do by law. We are directing an electoral officer to ignore a lawful instruction—that’s what we are doing. This is where a council has voluntarily made a decision, an instruction has been given to an electoral officer, and this sneaky, sneaky clause is saying to the electoral officer, “Don’t do what you’re lawfully required to do.”

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Shameful.

I do think that is a shameful position, and I’d ask the Minister to reflect on it.

Here’s a further point I’d like the Minister to directly address. I’ve heard from councillors, Minister, who voted for Māori seats in their community on the basis that there would be a poll, and they said, “I think the community should have the choice, and so I’m going to support this resolution and let my community decide.” That’d be a pretty defendable position. What the Minister is doing is changing the rules midway stream. Those councillors are outraged that they made a lawful decision at their council on the basis of a set of laws, and the Minister is now overriding it.

So, for instance, a member of this House might have said, “Well, I might not support cannabis being legalised, but I’m going to vote for a bill to have a referendum on it.” Then, subsequently, Parliament passes a law that says oh, well, we’re just going to have legalised cannabis, and we’re not going to have a referendum, but we are going to count that member as being in favour. I think every member of this House would say that that is a dog process. Well, it is a dog process, and it’s exactly what we are doing in this Schedule.

There are councillors in New Zealand who only voted for a community to be able to decide whether they wanted to have Māori wards. The poll is now being removed. The process is being abused, and I ask the Minister to support my amendment that would stop that specific abuse provided for in the Schedule.

So the amendment that I’ve tabled to Schedule 1 specifically provides for respecting process. That is, where a council has voted for Māori wards in their area, they’ve done so on the basis that there would be a poll, and the Schedule suddenly now takes that away. My submission to the Parliament is that to change the rules mid-process is wrong, and even if you are going to go down this road, Minister, let’s not cause that offence.

Now, the Minister might say, well, the ends justify the means. If I hear the Minister—what she’s really saying is, “I want Māori seats, and if I have to trample on a few legal rights, good process, along the way to do that, well, what the heck.”

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Not to mention democracy.

Well, that’s right. What she doesn’t realise is that when Labour Governments do this—and I quoted research published at the beginning of this year that shows that Labour has an appalling record of passing partisan changes in electoral law. Every time they do that, they erode the conventions of this Parliament and the very things that make New Zealand such a great country and our democracy so strong.

Chlöe Swarbrick: What about prisoner voting?

Now, I hear an interjection from the member, and I’d like her to take a call and address this question. How is it fair—I’d just like someone to answer this question—

Chlöe Swarbrick: No, you don’t. You want to delay it.

How is it fair—oh, well, look, I think the Green Party’s view is this, and it’s certainly the Minister’s position: “We support people having a vote, providing they vote the right way.” It’s a bit similar to what this member has done on cannabis. When this member lost the referendum on cannabis, she almost took a Trump-like view that says, “Well, regardless of the vote, I’m still right.” I say, and members on this side of the House take a view of, even when I disagree, I respect the outcome of the voter.

The other point I would challenge the member on is this: do you respect that the electoral system belongs to the electors, not the elected? That’s why I say that the decision—

Chlöe Swarbrick: That’s what this is—representative democracy.

Well, no, hang on. The member says, “That’s what this does.” No, it doesn’t. What this bill does, what this part does, is take away this decision on how our election system works, and it takes it off the electors and puts it in the hands of the elected, and I object to that. I say that if this Parliament wants to change its rules and be elected by a system of MMP or single transferable vote or some other system, that’s a decision for the voters, not us. I say when a council wants to change its electoral system, that is a decision that should rest with the electors.

Here’s the last question, and I note not a single Labour member has got to their feet to defend their own policy at the last election. I’d ask members opposite how you can possibly argue that this clause is consistent with the commitment you made to New Zealanders, and I quote it directly: “Labour will ensure that major decisions about local democracy involve full participation of the local population”. This clause does the exact opposite. This clause overrides lawful instructions to an electoral officer. This clause overrides democratic resolutions that have been passed by council. This clause retrospectively overrides 25,000 New Zealanders who have quite lawfully signed a petition and sought a poll in this area, and this provision trashes those people’s democratic, legitimate rights, created by the previous Labour Government and by this Minister. The only way I can sum up this clause is: Labour does not like the way people have voted and so their answer is to take the vote off them. That is a very dangerous precedent. That, as the New Zealand Herald says, smacks of arrogance of the first majority MMP Government. This is bad for race relations and bad law.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following on from that last speech and an issue that Minister in the chair, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, raised in her response before, she talked about it being a Treaty requirement that this legislation, effectively, gives effect to. I’d like for her to explain what part of the Treaty that actually refers to, because under my understanding of the Treaty there’s no specific clause that would enable that to be taken as one of the three parts of the Treaty. So if she is relying on the Treaty for this, then I’d like to see where it says that in the Treaty, because in my understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi, it doesn’t give any explicit notification that there should be Māori seats and council wards or that councils could override democracy, because the whole point of the Treaty was that everybody has a vote and every vote is equal and that all those votes then determine the government at whatever level—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Tell us about the four sections of the Treaty, David.

—local regional, and central—and the Green members, we’ll come to them in a moment. But that is the preeminent part of the Treaty, that we’re all given equal votes. And then for the Minister to say that the Treaty is the rationale behind why the Government’s doing this, it needs explanation as to actually what part of the Treaty does give that right or responsibility to enable the over-erosion of democracy in our communities, where people, actually, at a referendum make a decision—and it could be Māori and non-Māori voting in that referendum for or against the Māori seats in their council. I would think that that is a complete override of what the Treaty stands for and what it’s about. So I’d like the Minister to answer that question and just give it a full explanation of her rationale of using the Treaty behind her reasoning as to why she’s able to do what the Government is trying to do in this House today.

The other issue that, really, I think the Minister needs to explain is the practicality. A lot of the public out there will be sitting here listening to this debate and they’ll be thinking, “Why don’t councillors and mayors actually promote this before they get elected?” You know, “Why is it something that comes out post-election of a council and a mayor?” You know, why don’t they go out there and say to the public, when they’re getting on this local body election campaign, “Look, this is something I really want to achieve for our community”? Some do, but a vast majority don’t, and then suddenly once they’re in the position of power of being a mayor or councillor, it becomes a part of the agenda. It will be fascinating to see the Minister’s perspective on that as to why there is that change of direction by those councillors and mayors.

We can all surmise as to why that might be the case—it might be something that they feel that politically they can’t take to the public. But there may be other reasons. You know, are there roles of negotiation within local and regional council that mean that mayors and councillors have pressures put on them that mean that they have to then look at opportunities to deliver for those pressures? And that could well be an example of why we suddenly come to this fruition at local government of a desire to have Māori representation in the form of separate Māori seats within the councils.

So the Minister is very experienced in that area, and I’d like to know her reasoning as to why we do see that change, because I think the public out there would be very content if they actually knew what the rationale behind what happens is, because they feel that they have only one voice, and that voice is through the referendum process. The electoral process gives them an opportunity, but that’s every three years. The referendum process gives them an immediacy around decision making at local government, and that’s important in a democracy to have that immediate local body decision-making as well.

So there are two questions there that I’d like the Minister to answer: first of all, to explain her rationale in the Treaty and what part of the Treaty and how that actually relates to what they’re doing here today; secondly, why she believes councils and mayors suddenly change their tune after being elected and want to promote these kind of activities.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s my first opportunity to speak on the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill, and I’ve listened very carefully to the contributions when I’ve had an opportunity to be in the House, and I certainly don’t question anybody’s intentions or the genuineness of the views that they hold.

I do, however, have a question for the Minister. Is this about equal opportunity or is it about equal outcome; and has the Minister thought about the consequences of the latter option? Because everywhere that has been tried—and that’s what I can see in this Schedule; that’s what it looks like to me: a constructed piece of legislation to ensure some sort of equal outcome in a council sense—elsewhere in the world, it requires a totalitarian state to enforce it. I think that while this won’t create a totalitarian state, we have to remember that, actually, in the last 12 months, restrictions have been put on our freedom through this COVID situation, and how quickly people have come to accept those things. I think that’s a very real thing that needs to be addressed and I think the Minister—I’d love to hear that from her.

I think, when I heard the Minister say that this side of the House might not agree with what she was saying in her previous contribution, that’s absolutely right, but I suspect that the great majority of New Zealanders don’t agree with what she was saying either. I think this whole construction that she’s trying to put into local government actually is designed to, in some way, silence those people.

Councils have processes and existing ways to try and encourage Māori participation. In my council anyway, where I live in Marlborough, Marlborough District Council, they don’t have Māori wards. They’ve never sought to have them, as far as I’m aware, but they do have iwi representatives on committees. They take that very seriously. They have full input, if they wish, on their decisions, and I think that’s been a proactive response from that council.

Going to the next step and then setting up—a council taking the step to set up Māori wards without consulting their communities, and now, with this legislation, being able to ignore that voice from the community—I think that’s very odd. Why would you set out to do that? If you believe that, you’d stand on that basis in the election, and that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Though I don’t doubt for a moment the genuine intent of the Minister to try and make things better—or what is the problem definition here? It seems like Māori representation as elected councillors is pretty close to their population percentage. However, I accept that won’t be evenly spread around the country, but I go back to my question—what is this about?

Is this about equal opportunity or is it about trying to have equal outcome? Unfortunately, sometimes that’s not fair, but actually it’s not an equal-outcome world. That’s the way it is. Some of us are made differently in terms of a sporting context, for example, but I think in terms of Māori and the Crown’s relationship, we have done a pretty good job with our Treaty and our steps forward. Could we have done better? Absolutely we could, but I think everything’s been done with good intentions on both sides and mistakes have been made along the way, and there’s no doubt about that.

But this is not the solution to all of those issues. In fact, it will only create more division—certainly judging by my inbox, and I’m sure lots of other members have had similar type emails. All this is doing is generating ill will that we do not need, and we’re not getting anything out of this other than more problems ahead. I think that’s a very serious problem and I think the Minister should reflect on that, and I think that she and her caucus should have another think on it altogether.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d just like to pay tribute to my colleagues Stuart Smith and Todd Muller for the contributions they’ve made on this particular clause in the bill, the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill.

I’d like to ask the Minister, please, if we could turn our minds to clause 6 in new Schedule 1, where it talks about where territorial authorities or regional councils have made a resolution, under section 19ZD, before the commencement date ceases to have effect on the commencement date. Paragraph (b) in there talks about where the clause applies to a resolution of a territorial authority or regional council if “the poll has not been held as at the commencement date” of this bill.

Minister, in some cases, the poll may not have been held, but in my experience in local government, if it has gotten to the point of being discussed, and I would estimate that quite a lot of preparation work had already been done in terms of setting up a poll—I’m not sure if there are any councils in New Zealand that find themselves in that position with this new bill in front of us. But what would be the implication or the recompense to those councils who have incurred the cost of the prep work that is required in setting up in readiness to undertake a poll, if that has been the case for that particular council?

There will be a huge amount of staff time invested, possibly even some advertising already done. So in terms of the cost that has already been incurred by councils in preparing for a poll, will there be some kind of recompense for them? It may be my Scottish blood, but I’ve always maintained that this is ratepayers’ money that we talk about when councils are investing. Even if it staff time, it is not the councils’ money; it is the ratepayers’ money.

So an answer to that question would be helpful, and I’d like to pick up too on another issue that has been raised, and the Minister herself mentioned it in one of her responses about equality. As my colleague Stuart Smith just talked about, in terms of “equal”, are we on the pathway to equal in terms of 50:50 partnership, and if that’s the case, then can we be honest about that and can we actually accept that point? You know, is that the target that we’re heading for, and I think if that is the case, then that is a whole conversation, another conversation, that we need to have. Does “equal” then refer to proportionality—so the proportion of population, perhaps, so that it is equal in representation, which we’ve heard in other parts of this bill is around 14 percent, which we have already met in terms of Māori representation—or are we talking about, as Stuart Smith said, equal opportunity?

I’d like to reflect on the situation that occurs in my own patch in Westland, where we have Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae, who already sit around the council table as true partners, and with a huge amount of mutual respect for the organisation. So there are no decisions made in that particular local authority where local iwi are not fully engaged and fully participating.

I just have concerns that these relationships, that are built over a huge amount of time, and with the individuals involved—that that gets us to the point where we have partners around the council table in the decision making, and that with a blanket rule from top down, that discourages the bottom-up relationship building that is already going on in this country. I have concerns that we may damage some of those relationships as we go forward with this top-down approach.

So, Minister, I respectfully ask that you consider these points that I have made. Thank you very much.

Listen, firstly can I just say we really appreciate the Minister engaging with us in this stage of the process. She is very respected, she’s incredibly thoughtful, and I think her explanations of context are genuinely appreciated in the House and on this side. I just want to say I think it is a real shame, however, that we haven’t had a chance to actually discuss this and get into these conversations in the process. The process hasn’t really given us the chance to have a proper conversation. It hasn’t really given us the chance, as the Minister said, to try and reconcile or bring together the binary views that we heard through the submission process, and I think that’s a really big shame, because I think we’re actually better than that. I think we should attempt to try and reconcile those binary views. That has been the story of our history and our progress thus far, and I think we’ve got to keep working hard at what the Americans would say about “Perfecting our union”. I think that’s really important.

So I think we do need to take a step back and actually reflect and think that the process does matter, because, as I said, it hasn’t really helped us reconcile or resolve those binary views. We’re no richer or wiser as to why this bill’s actually happening. And, you know, it’s surprising because the “what” is really clear—about what’s being done here—the “how” is pretty clear, but the “why” isn’t clear, and that’s because of the process. I don’t understand, fundamentally, why the Government wouldn’t want to go on a decent process that actually takes the New Zealand people with them.

When you reflect on the fact that the process kicks off with a bill, a day later it’s passed at its first reading, then we’re into a two-day submission process from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.—over two days, we do some quick Zoom meetings. We had 12,500 submissions; 9,500 of those submissions were against the bill, and we didn’t really hear those—we heard some of those perspectives, but we didn’t really understand or try and engage with all of that. So I think the process is bad. You couple that with the poor public consultation, coupled with the poor departmental advice, the regulatory impact statement advice, the manifesto commitments, the way the Cabinet’s gone, and I just don’t understand why the Minister and the Government wouldn’t want to get that process straight so that doesn’t become a hurt, or an irritant, or a pain point for the public to deal with as they deal with this issue. I think explaining why we’re doing this is really important, because otherwise it just does, actually, as the Minister says, “harden hearts”, and I think that’s a really disappointing thing and a sad thing if that is to happen.

I think the problem with the process, as I said, is that we’re not even trying to take the New Zealand people with us. We’re not even trying to get their buy-in from a Government point of view to what is a really significant change to electoral law. I think if we leave this House and we go out across this country, whether it’s in my electorate of Botany or whether it’s in Bishopdale in Christchurch, the people of New Zealand don’t fundamentally understand the rationale for the legislation. They get what you’re doing, they get how you’re doing it, but they don’t get the “why”. And I think that’s important, because we’ve lost an opportunity to really take them with us. That’s what clauses 2 to 6 in the Schedule are really all about, because they are certainly, I think, causing that hardening of hearts or those binary views.

If you look at clauses—you know, clause 2 is really very much around the “Territorial authority or regional council may resolve during transition period to establish Māori wards or Māori constituencies”. Clause 3 is very much about revoking the resolution made under section 19Z before commencement date. Clause 4: no poll can be demanded. Clause 5: demand by polls already given is revoked. So there’s a whole bunch of issues there, and I think the question I’ve got is what do we say to the people who’ve already invested heaps in this process?

When you think about it, we already have—where is it? It’s up in Whangārei, in the northern region, we’ve got 8,700 people who’ve already signed a petition above the 5 percent threshold. We’ve got Whangārei—5,100 people already signed above the petition. Kaipara’s 1,376; Tauranga, 6,000; Taupō, 1,700; Ruapehu, 551. So what do we say to the 25,000 people that have already signed petitions? How do we help them understand or engage in this issue? They haven’t really had a chance to be able to do that, and so I think, sadly, we’ve never really debated this issue properly and been able to take the New Zealand people with us. And these people here who are voting for this petition, how are they left? How are they feeling? They feel frustrated, they feel angry—that drives the division that the Minister’s so keen to avoid, and we’re all keen to avoid, but this isn’t helping, this process.

So I would just ask the Minister—I would be really interested in her views about, given her genuine intent for reconciliation and perfecting our union, what has been the thinking about why the process has to be so rushed. Why haven’t we taken the opportunity to have a decent process that then enables the New Zealand people to go through the debate, through the discussion, and actually go along the way? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to expand on that issue and just ask Minister Mahuta why there hasn’t been an extended process, because this is a crucial issue for New Zealand and it’s an issue that we’ve been working on for a long time, I think, in New Zealand. New Zealand has a proud history, in my respectful submission, of trying to resolve these issues—certainly imperfectly, and there’s a lot more to be done, but the question for me, and certainly for people I talk to in my communities, is: why hasn’t there been a more extensive process of consultation and discussion? I go back to a point I raised yesterday, and I’ve experienced this many times in my professional career: if people do not feel they have an opportunity to be heard, they will not engage with the process and they will not respect the outcome.

In this case, there has been an incredibly truncated select committee process. It has not given the opportunity for over 70 people who expressed the desire to be heard, in the less than two days that they had to put in submissions—there have been over 12,000 submissions put in in less than 48 hours. In my submission, with an issue addressing the real democratic principles on which our country is founded and which we all agree on and we all understand underpin the success and security of our country, we need to have a proper discussion about these things. Even if members of our community do not agree with the Māori wards or with the polls being removed from the community on whether Māori wards should or should not be established, there should be a proper discussion and there should be an opportunity.

The normal process, Minister, as I understand, is six months for something like this to go through a select committee, and on an issue as crucial as this for New Zealand—and this is an issue that is about both our democracy and empowering Māori and empowering Māori decision-making and empowering Māori to have the ability to determine their own destiny, but in a way that all of New Zealand can understand and respect—I respectfully suggest that there should be a proper process and it should not be rushed through the House. It should not be rushed through the select committee process. Some of the wording in new Schedule 1 just doesn’t help that. For example, clause 5, “Demand for poll by electors … must be disregarded”—whether or not that is right, it’s certainly going to raise concerns in our communities that this Government is not engaging the community, is not discussing changes to electoral law with the community, and is, rather, imposing its decisions on the community. That’s a very concerning point.

The other matter that deserves, in my submission, a more considered discussion is the retrospectivity of this law. In any democratic country or arrangement, it is important that our communities can make decisions knowing that the law that they make their decisions on is the law that will apply tomorrow, and it will not be changed without them being given advance notice that the change will happen. There needs to be a proper discussion, I would suggest, Minister, with our communities about why that is not the case here, but rather retrospective changes have been made to take away the right—and this is a very important point that can’t be lightly swept aside: communities have voted in polls, and whether or not you agree with the polls that have been called for, the fact is, electors in our communities have called for that, and now they’re being told that the vote that they made or the polls that they participated in will now be disregarded. That is a disturbing thing, I think, and it just sets a disturbing precedent, and it’s one that deserves further consideration and further discussion.

Just on a slightly different point, in my part of the world—that’s the Southland electorate—I have five district councils. I have two regional councils. And I know that under section 82 of the Local Government Act 2002, each of those councils must—and I stress the word “must”—“ensure that it has in place processes for consulting with Māori”, and I know that they take it extremely seriously. They consult with Ngāi Tahu, and I note that Ngāi Tahu is noted, for example, in the Christchurch district council—[Bell rung]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d just like to pick up the discussion on the Schedule that we are examining in the bill, the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who I would love to engage with on a couple of points within that legislation—clause 5 of the Schedule. I’d like to do a bit of a fine examination in both senses of the phrase, if I can manage it, in relation to clause 5, “Demand for poll by electors under sections 19ZB”—Zulu Bravo, not the radio station that will make some members opposite feel nervous—“and 19ZC”—Zulu Charlie—“before commencement date must be disregarded on commencement date”. So there’s a lot in that, and I just want to break it down almost word by word, because there’s a lot in there that actually speaks to the overall themes of the legislation and what is at stake before this committee of the whole House of Parliament.

The first is demand. So this is a demand for a poll, and “demand” is not used, obviously, in any sort of ugly sense. It’s just a technical term for saying something has been demanded—it’s been asked for, it’s been requested—and there’s a clear process at the moment for exactly the way that that would happen. But a demand is something that’s wanted. It’s something that’s initiated in accordance with a particular process, and what we’re going to see as we continue to look at the wording of this provision is that that demand is to be disregarded. So something that already exists, something that’s in train, something for which the wheels have been set in motion, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor, is to be disregarded. So that’s the first significant thing.

The second is that it’s a demand for a poll. Now, a poll, of course, is a mechanism by which the will of the people or a subset of people is determined. Of course, a poll can oftentimes mean an opinion poll in the way that’s used, for example, between elections, but a poll, of course, technically includes the act of an election itself—that is a poll. It’s actually an opinion poll as well, but it’s one that has a particular weight and a particular meaning. So I think that it should give us pause, in this committee, that we are considering, as a House, passing a piece of legislation in which the demand for a poll—just to recap, a legitimately requested exercise of the opinion of a group of electors—is to be disregarded.

When I say it’s to be disregarded, I refer specifically to the fact that the wording is mandatory. It must be disregarded—there’s no question. There are no criteria according to which it may or may not be disregarded. There’s no sense of proportionality, in the sense that if a large number of people, perhaps a large proportion of people, want a particular thing and have indeed demanded a particular thing, there is no nuance. It is a very blunt instrument, and the definitive nature of it in the context of a democratic mechanism, such as a poll duly demanded or sought, should give this committee pause for thought. My question to the Minister in the first instance would be to ask whether she is even mildly uncomfortable about that aspect of what sits before us.

The second thing would be to dig just a little bit deeper into who it is that would be polled in such a scenario. The answer is, of course, in black and white in front of us—in highlighter yellow in my case, because I’ve been preparing these remarks, believe it or not. It’s the electors. It’s a poll of the electors, and the electors are significant in a democracy because the electors are, by definition, the people, and the people in a democracy are the “demos”; it is the rule by, of, and for the people, and if we are to disregard the will of the people, as is currently allowed, as is currently provided for in the way this provision is asking us to, then we are saying something that is very serious for any representative body, such as this Parliament itself, in that we are going to disregard the will of the people as already expressed or in the way that wheels are in motion for that to be expressed.

We see further in the detail that the theme continues. Again, in clause 5, “must not give notice [of the poll] … on or after the commencement date.” So the somewhat arbitrary line that’s drawn—and it’s always the way in this House, to be fair. Legislation has to have a commencement date. And to have a commencement date that says, as a line in the sand, that a thing was under way before that—[Bell rung]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to continue this line of questioning of the Minister because one of the most concerning aspects of this Schedule is the degree to which local councils can of their own volition seek to hear from the people by virtue of a referendum. The bill has been, as articulated by the Minister, promoted as an effective veto on a referendum request—that is, the council has determined that a Māori ward is appropriate for their territorial authority; a petition has been signed by a minimum number of people, triggering a referendum under the current Act; and therefore that referendum would be set aside under this legislation. What it also does is, where the authority decides that they want to hear from the people, that they have no strong view except to have the people determine the manner in which the council is established—that process too is extinguished by this Schedule. So my question to the Minister is quite simply this: if not by that process, how will an authority get an appropriate, legitimate gauge of what its ratepayers—its constituents—actually want to occur?

We live in modern times; we hear a lot about how polls can be conducted—the ubiquitous influence of social media—but, frankly, the only way to test the will of the people is to ask them, and the Schedule, as I read it, in clause 6, basically says if the territorial authority or regional council has resolved that that’s the best way to address the question, there is no possibility that that question can be answered by a referendum. So, regardless of what one thinks about the merits or otherwise of the specific configuration of wards, the bigger concern is that when a council wants to hear from its people in an objective, measurable, poll-able referendum, how can it do that? So I want the Minister to address this very important issue, because, regardless of whether we believe that we’re extinguishing the rights of the people to have their say when the referendum is requested by the people, this is the reverse—this is the council going out to its ratepayers and saying, “We think this is something that you should tell us about”, and they’re now not going to be able to tell us. It’s a fundamental principle of our democracy.

Now, there are a number of other concerns about the degree to which the majority might impose its will, but there are a number of authorities around the country where the make-up of that constituency could have a very high proportion of Māori or Pasifika or Chinese or other ethnicities. There could be a number of elements that a council may wish to impose that it is legislatively, statutorily prevented from doing. The manner of the election process is actually something that the people should have a say on, as well, whether it’s the STV or first past the post. That’s a discussion that’s going on in the city of Dunedin right now, about whether STV is actually the right process. There is a statutory process for determining that, and clause 6 of this Schedule is now going to prevent, as I read it, an authority from being able to ask that very question of its people. Is that not the very essence of democracy? Yes, OK, let’s debate the merits of whether—is it 15 percent or 5 percent of the authority is able to trigger the referendum on Māori wards?

💬 Christopher Luxon: 5 percent.

5 percent—thank you, Mr Luxon. But when it’s pushed out the other way, when a council, in its considerations of how best to re-elect its representatives, wants to go and ask the people, it’s now being prevented from doing so.

So I want to hear from the Minister. This is a really important constitutional question of how we engage with its people. There is a concern, particularly in local councils, that its ratepayer base is being increasingly disengaged. Voter turnout in local elections is low and dropping. This isn’t going to make it any better. I want to hear from the Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I’ve just got, again, some pretty basic questions about this bill—the provisions relating to Māori wards and Māori constituencies in local government. We’re looking at clause 4, which points to new Schedule 1. The relevant thing here is that what the Government is saying with this piece of legislation is that if a council decides to have Māori wards—so to have Māori councillors specifically voted only by people on the Māori roll—they first, up till now, have to go to a referendum, and this bill is saying that that referendum, if it happens, must be disregarded after it comes in. So the fundamental question is: what is this Government afraid of when it comes to polls and referendums by the people?

The answer that we seem to have had from the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, so far is that the Minister doesn’t like the outcome of the majority of the previous polls, where, when this question is being asked of electors and New Zealanders, “Do they want separate seats on councils based on ethnicity?”, the answer has been an overwhelming no. The Minister clearly doesn’t like that outcome, and the Government is now legislating over the top of that. So the conclusion is that the Government is saying to the people of New Zealand, “We don’t trust you to make this decision correctly.” They’re saying to New Zealanders, “We don’t believe you will make the right judgments, and therefore we’re going to take away your ability to make those judgments.” So the assumption behind that, presumably, is that the Government knows better than New Zealanders on this issue and they don’t trust their judgment on this issue.

So I suppose the question is: what do they think New Zealanders are thinking about when they have typically voted against these provisions? Why would they be voting against them? I think we could consider some of those factors and why it has been, in the vast majority of cases, when New Zealanders have been asked this question, “Do they want to have separate seats on their local council based on ethnicity, who your parents are, who your grandparents are?”, they’ve said no.

Chlöe Swarbrick: What about the Treaty?

Well, I could give you a few suggestions, I think one of the primary reasons would be that people are concerned about the general trend of this happening. What we’ve seen in this country is that more than 100 years ago we’ve had separate seats in this Parliament based on ethnicity, and it was something that was deemed appropriate in the 19th century and has carried on and continues to carry on even though Māori are very well represented in this Parliament now, in fact more so than their demography would suggest. So there is an argument that parliamentary Māori seats’ time has come. We as a party have indicated that that’s the case, but we’ve always said that it’s up to Māori people to determine when that—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I ask the member to come back to this bill.

—comes. Well, the relevant question is: why would people be worried about extending this now, more than a century later, to local government? So it is a question of extending that focus on difference and dividing the country on ethnic lines in the way that we organise our democracy at the local government level. I can imagine that there are many people in Auckland, where I come from, which is an intensely multicultural society, with many people of different cultures, wondering, “Well, hang on, why is it that all other New Zealanders are treated one way and Māori are treated another way when it comes to how we organise the local government elections?” Yes, and so people rightly—

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Point of order. As tangata whenua, I take personal offence to what is being said by the member.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order. I listened very carefully to what my colleague Goldsmith said, referring to the way in which Auckland was—

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Point of order. I am tangata whenua. I can say how I feel. As tangata whenua, I take personal offence to what is being said by the member.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Madam Speaker, it’s very unconventional for a member in the middle of a point of order to have another member simply stand up and interrupt them, and is not consistent with the way in which the House is run. The point I wish to make—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s point of order was before your point of order. Can you please take a seat, the Hon Dr Nick Smith. So let me deal with Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s point of order. She took offence to what you said, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, as tangata whenua. Can you please withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Simply because a member may have a particular view about a privileged status of a group of New Zealanders, surely this cannot mean that my colleague Mr Goldsmith, whose comments were simply around the lines of Auckland being a multicultural city with people of multiple different ethnicities, is somehow being offensive and being required to withdraw and apologise. Wokeness is not part of the Standing Orders of our Parliament. The member should not be required to withdraw and apologise for such inoffensive, normal remarks.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, if I may. The contributions of the Hon Paul Goldsmith spoke to the supposed privileged status of tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand. If you look at any statistics, we find that tangata whenua do not occupy that space of privilege.

Can I just have a simple point of order. I’d just like to understand what you are asking me to apologise for. What particular words are you asking me to apologise for?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): So the point of order that the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer raised was that she was personally offended when you called tangata whenua being of a certain status. Can we move forward from here and can you just complete your speech, the Hon Paul Goldsmith.

Sorry, I can’t apologise for something that I’m not quite clear what it is, what specific words—and maybe the member can help me—I said that the member requires me to apologise for. A general feeling? I’m just not quite clear what it is.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Can I please have further clarification from the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer about what she found so offensive.

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Thank you, Madam Chair. There was an offence of privileged implication and there was an offence that we belong all in one. Tangata whenua are not multicultural; we are tangata whenua. We need to stop being drifted and floated into every little pool or blanket that you believe we belong in culturally. We have a status: it’s tangata whenua.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Speaking to that point. I’m very much trying to find the appropriate Speakers’ ruling on the taking of offence. There is a Speakers’ ruling that says that somebody cannot take offence on behalf of another member. The inference in that Speakers’ ruling is that a class of persons, also, a member could not take offence on that. I would argue that the comments made by Mr Goldsmith were debating points. If we come to a point where people can take offence on generalisation, general comments that are otherwise within Standing Orders, I’m afraid that we’re going to get into a situation where we’re going to have a lot of it. Can I also just, while I’m on my feet, make another comment for your consideration? When Dr Nick Smith spoke to the original point of order and was interrupted by Ms Ngarewa-Packer, that was not in order. He had a right to finish his point of order without interruption, and you enabled her to basically cut across that. So I’d like you to consider both of those two points.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): So we have had this discussion. The member has raised that she has been offended. My ruling is that we just move on, and that to rule that when a class is offended as a class, tangata whenua, would be a significant point of order for me to rule on. I now ask the member if he would like to complete his speech in the last 12 seconds, he is most welcome to.

So as I was saying, before I was interrupted—

Chlöe Swarbrick: What, race baiting?

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Madam Chair, I’m sure Mr Goldsmith won’t ask for a withdrawal, but the accusation by one member to another that that member is race baiting is clearly unparliamentarily language and shouldn’t be used.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The member the Hon Michael Woodhouse is not able to take offence on behalf of another member. We shall move on. Six seconds.

Well, what I’m saying is that the inference of this bill is that this Government does not trust the judgment of New Zealanders.

I move, That the question be now put.