I am really pleased that we are introducing this bill, which will remove the provision which only applies to the establishment of Māori wards, therefore levelling the playing field. I want to quote Pita Tīpene of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Hine where he said, many, many years ago, the status quo is unacceptable. I have been studying this topic of local government and Māori for the last seven years. For 20 years, it has been almost impossible to establish Māori wards and constituencies throughout the 78 councils around the country. Why is that? The tyranny of the majority. We have Local Government New Zealand calling for this. We have the Human Rights Commission pointing to the fact that Māori are severely under-represented and this is one of the mechanisms in which we could achieve fairer participation and achievement of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We have the United Nations special rapporteur and two reports also pointing to it, the Waitangi Tribunal, petitions to Parliament, numerous evidence. I want to congratulate the Minister of Local Government for having the courage to bring this legislation 20 years after we have tried and tested this in our communities where councils for the first several years were too afraid to make the decision. But—bold leadership—now those decisions are being made and, as has been said here tonight, if the voters are unhappy with that, the chance to make it right is in three years, is at the election. So I commend this bill to the House. 