Land law reform on agenda

To help him be appointed as an expert on the review panel chaired by lawyer Matanuku Mahuika.

Mr Flavell says the shift of many whānau to Australia and delays in doing successions when owners die means many of it has become very hard to get enough people to land meetings to make decisions about how land should be used.

"Getting a 75 percent threshold for the ability to ask the question about the use of the land or even getting the land divided up or subdivided or whatever is a huge difficulty so the land just sits there. Sure it is used for things like leading for hay or grazing but when people want to move back to those papakainga lands, it's very difficult," he says.