April 12, 2016
No transparency on land law reform
Labour’s associate primary production spokesperson Meka Whaitiri says the Minister for Maori Development is riding roughshod over the interests of Maori landowners and claimants in his drive to reform Maori land law.
The Waitangi Tribunal will this week hold a judicial conference on whether it grants urgency to a claim challenging the government’s lack of response to a recent tribunal report which identified major failings with the content of Te Ture Whenua Maori Bill and the way it was developed.
Ms Whaitiri says the tribunal identified the need to get broad Maori support for the changes, and it pointed to a lack of evidence anything was seriously wrong with the current law.
She says Te Ururoa Flavell promised to give due consideration to the report, but he refuses to consult claimants or give details of how he will fix the situation.
"This is the minister supposedly representing Maori development issues and on something as significant as land he needs to be a lot more open, a lot more engaging, a lot more transparent than he currently is. I'm picking that he is ignoring what people are saying and the tribunal itself and he is going to introduce this bill," Ms Whaitiri says.
She says introducing the bill and sending it to the select committee isn’t a substitute for ensuring it is based on proper evidence.
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