An address by former chief Maori Land Court judge and former Waitangi Tribunal chair Justice Joseph Williams is on the agenda for the city council's Tangata Wheniua Committee this week.

The meeting which is open to the public, opens with Justice Williams' talk in the public forum section. Justice Williams is a regular speaker on New Zealand interracial and inter-cultural issues. Tomorrow's speech is advertised as, ‘Two worlds, two laws; managing the collision', from the Resource Management Law Association conference held in Tauranga in September.

Justice Williams. Picture: Image Services, Victoria University of Wellington.

Justice Williams was appointed as a judge of the High Court in October 2008 and is a leading specialist in Maori legal issues.

The RMLA conference examined how resource management planning and decision-making is attempting to incorporate cultural values, traditional knowledge, and the aspirations of Tāngata Whenua in the context of a rapidly developing region.

The conference will also explored the post Treaty settlement period where Tāngata Whenua find themselves in seemingly contrasting roles of both kaitiaki and resource / land developers.

Justice Williams keynote speech explores the roots of the Maori system of law introduced by Kupe, and its encounter with the legal philosophies introduced by the arrival of Europeans in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries.

The differences between the two systems couldn't possibly be more different or more oppositional, says Justice Williams.

The collision begins in 1840 with a western contract The Treaty of Waitangi, which is intended to mediate, but which is declared by the courts to be a nullity and unenforceable.

Things changed when the Treaty was recognised in New Zealand law in 1985, which started a decade long conversation that resulted in the Resource Management Act.

'The RMA is the crowning glory of that conversation,” he says. 'It is a sophisticated multi-layered mandate for recovering the first law and making it live once more,” says Justice Williams.

The RMA is the first time anywhere in anglo common law world and possibly anywhere else that anything as complicated as the RMA has been attempted.

The speech is on-line at:

http://webcast.gigtv.com.au/Mediasite/Play/43dc6cc59e7b457bb0c5e3c9111598601d?catalog=c75916d8-c596-45a9-be81-62a343d9a314&playFrom=5095&autoStart=true

As an undergraduate student Joseph Williams assisted with the framing of WAI 11, the Te Reo Maori claim which concerned official recognition for the Maori language. As a direct result of the claim, Te Reo Maori became an official language of New Zealand in 1987, an Te Taura Whiri I te Reo Maori, the Maori Language Commission, was established to promote the language.

He was educated at Lindisfarne College, Hastings. Justice Williams graduated from Victoria University with an LLB in 1986 and from the University of British Columbia, Canada, with an LLM (Hons) in 1988.Justice Williams joined, and later became a partner in 1990, of the law firm Kensington Swan in Auckland.

After practising as a partner of Walters Williams & Co between 1994 and 1999, Justice Williams was appointed Chief Judge, Maori Land Court in December 1999. Shortly thereafter he was appointed as Deputy Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal. Justice Williams is a former Vice President of the Maori Law Society and a former President of Te Runanga Roia o Tamaki Makaurau, the Auckland Maori Lawyers Association. His tribal affiliations are Ngati Pukenga and Te Arawa (Waitaha, Tapuika).