Carter John: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Carter John: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17030] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I want the Committee to reflect on this. The Minister in charge of the bill Michael Cullen has said that this is a very simple issue. He said that members should read clause 11(1) and he quoted part of it which provides that: “the full legal and beneficial ownership of the public foreshore and seabed is vested in the Crown …”. The Minister said: “It’s as simple as that folks. That’s what we are doing here today.” Winston Peters then got on to his feet and said: “We have saved the country. We have brought everybody together and what we have done is we have vested the foreshore and seabed in the Crown.”  
Well I ask Parliament and the people who are listening to this debate today to reflect on this: if it is that simple and takes just those few words then why are we dealing with a bill that was initially 69 pages another 67 pages of a Supplementary Order Paper another eight pages of another Supplementary Order Paper some notes that go for 138 pages and then also some explanatory notes that take up a further 59 pages? Why does it take that much paper that many words that many clauses and that many issues in order to vest the foreshore and seabed in the people? If it were just that simple I would have thought it would be only one clause.  
The problem we have is that again this Parliament is doing to itself and the country what it never should have done. It has written a whole lot of legal jargon to put in place something that is simple but will become so complicated that we will spend years and years unravelling what this Government the Labour Party and New Zealand First are doing to this country today. I say to the people to look at this legislation and at all the clauses in this bill and worry about how complicated it is. The bill is seriously complicated and divisive.  
It is not just a simple vesting of the foreshore and seabed in the people. If it were only that we certainly would not be here today opposing this bill. It is all the add-ons and the hidden stuff in the Supplementary Order Papers—the 67 pages of add-ons that have come back from the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee—that the Labour Party Winston Peters and New Zealand First are foisting on this country that we need to be worried about today. They have created such a complicated law around such a simple issue that we will be fighting this all over the place—in the courts out in the public in the pubs and on the beaches—for years to come.  
Let me say this to my colleague from the north Dover Samuels. He knows—as I do—that there are already some people up in the north who want to exclude people from the beaches. Already we have seen it happen and I bet members and wager that this summer there will be more instances where non-Maori people are excluded from the beaches because— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Karikari. 
JOHN CARTER 
: At Karikari Peninsula it is happening right now. White people—non-Maori people—cannot drive up to Karikari Peninsula. They are excluded from it. It is a public beach and they are not able to go on it. They are shunted off bullied off and railroaded off. Believe me that will happen more and more as this issue starts getting debated over Christmas and as Maori people’s expectations start getting more and more heightened. When they look at this bill they know that the Government is giving them something extra over and above non-Maori.  
 I say to the public to the Labour Party particularly and to Winston Peters and his caucus that they should not be doing this to New Zealand. It is wrong. I know a number of the New Zealand First members will have genuinely tried to get it right. I accept that. Unfortunately they have missed the bus they will cause strife across the country and they will cause us to have issues whereby non-Maori people will be excluded from their luxuries.