As National's spokesperson on Treaty of Waitangi negotiations, I spent a little bit of time on this bill's approach to implementing the Crown's obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi in relation to the plant variety rights regime. The legislation will bring into existence a Māori Plant Varieties Committee. That plant varieties committee will consider all applications for a new variety where the variety is wholly or partly derived from a taonga species, and where the material from which that variety was sourced in New Zealand. They will assess the effect of the grant on the kaitiaki relationships, and, in contrast to the Māori advisory committee under the Trade Marks Act 2002 and the Patents Act 2013, the Māori Plant Varieties Committee will have the power to make decisions on whether the plant variety right application should proceed, which are binding on the Commissioner of Plant Variety Rights. 