The Green Party is supporting this bill because my experience of Canterbury Regional Council was that it had a very long way to go in implementing the Treaty partnership. One of the few good things that came out of the appointment of commissioners in Canterbury was the place of Ngāi Tahu and its two representatives around that council table and the greater recognition that that forced the council to have of things Māori and of Te Tiriti. I can remember, in 2007, having to argue strongly for the first representative who had expertise in tikanga Māori to be appointed to the hearings panel on the Waitaki River and that being opposed by other councillors despite the importance of the Waitaki River to Ngāi Tahu because it rises in the headwaters of Aoraki—their tūpuna.