Franks Stephen: General Debates 
Franks Stephen: General Debates 
[Volume:616;Page:12453] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 For the ACT party I went to the press conference this morning at 11.45. I sat there and as I listened to the Hon Dr Michael Cullen announcing the Government’s policy in that curiously tired “This is really just all beneath me.” voice with the slight cloth-cap element that he affects—that indeed he must affect as a Labour Party politician—I was reminded of another Englishman of a few years ago one called Neville Chamberlain. “Peace in our time” Neville Chamberlain said as he came back from Munich. I was reminded of that when Michael Cullen was speaking because he has introduced something called ancestral connection which no one in this country has ever seen before which no court has ever asked for and which no one in the English-speaking world knows about. It is something that comes by right of historical association. 
Is it colour-blind now? Well the Rt Hon Winston Peters would try to say it represented something of “one law for all”. Curiously Michael Cullen did not seem to think so. He was quaintly amused at the thought there might actually be any Pakeha who could qualify— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Not surprisingly. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Not surprisingly when the trigger date is 1840 for something that Dr Cullen says is not a treaty right. Curiously the Government has selected 1840 and of course not leaving any possibility which a lawyer might expect for it to start from the time that a custom is actually established. 
Does it respect property rights? Well the Hon Margaret Wilson told us today that these things will be property rights. I say to her that it is odd that it will expressly exclude the property right that Maori were promised under article 2 of the treaty in that they cannot sell it or turn it to valuable account. What does “ancestral connection” mean for ordinary New Zealanders who want to go fishing who want to picnic or camp who want to walk or paddle in the surf? What it means is tyres slashed campers bashed picnickers menaced—not this year maybe not next year maybe not even during the next 10 years while the lawyers are taking their pickings out of this process. It will be the next generation of young Maori who look at it and say: “What is this ancestral connection? Clearly someone thought we were owed something because they’ve given it to us.” But what remote resemblance does ancestral connection bear to a useable right a property right as the Hon Margaret Wilson tried to describe it? When an ancestral connection has been offered and one gets a pig’s ear instead of a property right who would blame the next generation of Maori for saying it was a booby prize a consolation prize—“They’ve acknowledged we were owed something and they’ve given us something that means nothing.”? 
In fact what it does mean is an absolute negative. The only thing it will mean to Maori is to be a nuisance to all their neighbours and local government. It is feudal. It says political power will go by descent; it says political power will go by inheritance. When political power goes by inheritance of course it is abused. Maori are as human as the rest of us. Only racists think that for some reason inherited political privilege that has been conferred on a race basis will not be abused will not be resented will not be turned to account by Maori inventing taniwha around every headland. Why would people not invent taniwha if it is the only way to benefit? These taniwha are amazingly greedy! They are satisfied by money. But why would Maori not invent one if that is the only way of turning an ancestral connection order to account? 
That is what this Government is storing up for this community. This Government is storing up a perpetual conflict of interests; it is storing them up in a way that elected officials cannot resist and kaitiaki-ship is made up as we go along because it is based on tikanga. Tikanga and the rule of law are not compatible. Tikanga is not law. Maori have been sensible enough to say that custom must evolve; it cannot be frozen in time. Of course the Maori Land Court can order ancestral connection orders as it chooses because ancestral connection has no relevance to anything that our law has known before and no relevance to anything that is going to be known in the future.