te Heuheu Georgina: Maori Purposes Bill — In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Maori Purposes Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:636;Page:6966] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be here to take a call in the Committee stage of the Maori Purposes Bill. I turn immediately to Part 1 which has three or four main points as I am sure members of the Committee have already spoken about. I want to make a comment on at least two of those. 
Clause 4 deals with the appointment of judges—increasing the permanent judge membership of the Maori Land Court from eight to 14. National supports that but we raise the concern that first of all an increase in the judiciary requires a corresponding increase I would imagine in resources. We did not receive any confirmation that that would necessarily follow. The other thing is that while no doubt someone did some work on the number of judges that might be required we are told that 14 would not be appointed to the court at once or an extra six but that as they were needed others would be appointed. 
I stress that although it is all very well anticipating an increase in workload it seems to me at least that the way the Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd has been allocating the assets in respect of Maori fisheries is running reasonably smoothly. Of course there is the other jurisdiction around the foreshore and seabed. 
As I say we recognise that there is probably a good reason for the increase in judges but we would wish to see some corresponding increase in resources should it prove necessary to increase the number to 14. It is no use having judges sitting there without the necessary support. 
I turn to clause 5 which enables the Chief Judge to delegate to the Deputy Chief Judge some or all of his or her functions powers and duties conferred by the Act. Again at the Maori Affairs Committee we had questions about that and asked the officials whether this was something that happens in other jurisdictions. If I recall correctly although an express provision of this nature does not necessarily apply in other parts of the judiciary nevertheless there is an understanding that there is statutory power for the next senior judge of any other court to take over if the Chief Judge is away. 
There are legitimate reasons why a deputy should have the powers of the Chief Judge and those were set out as things like illness or when a Chief Judge is prevented from exercising duties because he or she is not able to be there. If I remember the officials’ advice correctly one of the reasons it was deemed necessary for these powers to be given to the deputy was the dual role of the Chief Judge who is also chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal. Of course New Zealand First has a bill on this very matter relating to conflict. So the delegation provision seems a reasonable thing to do but again it was not without some reasonably investigative discussion in the committee. 
The part that concerns National most is the provision that validates the 83 decisions of former Deputy Chief Judge Norman Smith. He basically acted without a warrant. His warrant had expired but he continued to make certain decisions in any event. We added a note into the commentary on the report back. Although some of the committee considered that retrospective validation is justified the National Party does not agree with the use of retrospective legislation to validate the types of decisions in this particular case. 
 In other words what has happened is that the parties who were the subjects of those cases before Norman Smith actually had no idea that he was acting without a warrant at the time. Although that may not in the long run make any difference none the less we do not think that the way this matter has been approached is desirable. The jury is still out for us as to whether we support this provision. He just carried on making decisions. Someone was remiss in not realising that Judge Norman Smith was acting outside his warrant. That is not good; really it should not be tolerated. We have now come in the form of this bill to validate his decisions. As I say National has real difficulty with that. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: What do you think should be done about it Georgie? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: My friend on the other side of the House Dover Samuels is singing out about what I think should be done about it. Well we had some suggestions at the Maori Affairs Committee. We did ask the officials whether they had gone back to the parties against whom and in favour of whom these decisions had been made. We thought that was a reasonable thing to do but the officials did not think so simply because time has now elapsed and certain parties to the actions have acted on those decisions. Yes that is an explanation but it does not necessarily make it right. I hope the Maori Land Court is watchful in the future and does not let this sort of thing happen again even though there is now provision to cover this sort of eventuality. 
The other provisions in Part 1 are around—and my friend Pita Paraone was talking about this just a minute ago—the Deputy Chief Judge being able to exercise the powers of the Chief Judge. The explanation given as to why this should be so is that judges have a certain workload and a certain distinctiveness. Officials can always give a good reason for some of these things but I do not know whether the reasons are always logical or necessarily appropriate. 
However the provision in Part 1 that National has most concern about is that relating to the validation of Norman Smith’s decisions. I hope that once the bill goes through officials of Te Puni Kokiri will consider writing at that stage to the persons affected anyway. I cannot remember whether we asked the officials to do that but the Minister of Maori Affairs might like to get to his feet and tell us whether there is any plan for the officials to let people know what has happened. The decisions will have been validated but I think that if nothing else it is pure courtesy to let those people know what has happened. There is provision I understand for the decisions to be reheard if the parties want. Perhaps the Minister could give some assurance that he will treat this matter in at least a courteous fashion and instruct his officials to write to the parties concerned to let them know what has happened. Perhaps he would like to take a call to let us know that. 
The other thing the Minister might like to take a call on is the actual position of the Chief Judge. Right now I understand the Chief Judge is sitting on only one tribunal claim. It seems to me in the context of his sitting on only one Waitangi Tribunal claim—flora and fauna—that he does not seem to be particularly busy. Maybe the Minister could give us some backing by saying that. I remember that when I was sitting on the tribunal Chief Judge Eddie Durie was extremely busy. So perhaps the Minister might like to take a call and explain why those provisions are necessary.