Jones Dail: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Procedure Second Reading 
Jones Dail: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Procedure Second Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16953] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I believe that this debate highlights one major issue and that is the question of leadership. The only leader of the Opposition in this House is the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He was here tonight to front up to this issue. Where was the leader of the National Party tonight to speak in this House? When will he speak in the House tonight? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Might I say that this will be the first of many if that line continues. I understood that it was inappropriate to mention the absence of members from the House. Dr Brash of course is engaged in important work of—[ 
Interruption 
] It is about as important as that useless Prime Minister Helen Clark who has not bothered to come to the House tonight to explain why her Government is stripping New Zealanders of their rights. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I listened to what Mr Dail Jones said. He did not refer to the absence of a member; he said that he did not front up on the issue. He may well be sitting there for all I can see and not fronting up on the issue. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just for the record I want to make it absolutely clear that Helen Clark is not here as this is a bill that terrifies her. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That is doubly out of order. Both parts of that statement are out of order. The member should learn what the Standing Orders are on the reference to members being absent from the Chamber. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member is quite right. 
DAIL JONES 
: I will continue my speech and I would like to thank the honourable Gerry Brownlee for letting everybody know that the leader of the National Party is not here tonight which is not the point I was making. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Where is Winston Peters? I take it that he is in the bar. Call him down here immediately. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: That is not a point of order. 
DAIL JONES 
: The Rt Hon Winston Peters the leader of the Opposition as far as the Opposition parties are concerned has spoken in this House tonight and made a contribution to this debate. We have heard nothing of any worth from the other Opposition parties in this House. I say that this is a question of leadership. When New Zealand First was confronted with this issue in the NgatiApa case the Rt Hon Winston Peters said in this House on 25 June 2003 within days of the decision in the NgatiApa case in  
Hansard 
 Volume 609 at page 6566: “New Zealand First will support any move to ensure that the Crown has legal title to the foreshore and seabed.” That is not a political speech; that is what we said and that is what we are doing tonight. We are making sure the Crown has legal title to the foreshore and seabed.  
Again we said in the same speech: “Maori traditional rights of use must be protected but those rights cannot be extended to property ownership on the basis of race.” 
 That is what we are doing tonight. We are not politicking on this issue. We are giving leadership—something the National Party and other Opposition parties are not capable of doing. We said it on 25 June 2003 and we are doing it—unlike the speeches that we have heard before.  
Again we said in that particular speech: “All Governments must be fair and neutral in matters of race.” When we look at the customary rights orders in the High Court we are making it clear that they can be obtained regardless of race. I look forward to the Auckland Anniversary regatta—which Mr Baldock seemed to think was not an important issue when he mentioned it in the select committee—being able to get a customary rights order as the Hon Wayne Mapp of the National Party established could be the case in his questioning of the officials. I look forward to that as a sign of the equality that is available under this legislation.  
New Zealand First has shown leadership in this matter. We have set out what our principles were and we are now giving effect to them. We have heard nothing like that from the National Party. We heard a speech made at Orewa which could only be described as divisive. We have heard in the last few days that the National Party supports customary rights but when it is faced with a bill that does put up customary rights it opposes it. What sort of leadership is that on the part of the National Party?  
We have heard a speech from Mr Brownlee tonight which suggests that he has not even understood all the submissions he heard and has no grasp of what is contained in this bill. If he has any aspirations for leadership he has shown tonight that he is really at sea on the whole issue. He has no idea of what he is doing and even tonight he has let us know the whereabouts of his leader. That is not the sort of thing that any aspiring leader should undertake.  
It is really a privilege and a pleasure for me to be taking part in the debate on this bill. I must say that as a New Zealand First member of Parliament—I am delighted that I am a New Zealand First member of Parliament tonight—I think National Party members should be ashamed of the way in which they are behaving on this legislation. When I was in the House previously we had a problem with Samoan legislation and we had to take some action and the National Party did. I remember certain Labour Party members being dragged—kicking and screaming—into the Ayes lobby or voting unanimously on that issue. I reread that debate a little while ago and I read the speeches made by some people—who occupy a very high office today—who protested against the issue. But at the end of the day it was a national issue. Something had to be done. The National Party did it and the Labour Party supported it—unanimously. That showed a degree of leadership on the part of the Labour Party and perhaps it was no great surprise that it went on to win the next election.  
This National Party has no regard for the welfare of New Zealand in the types of speeches we have heard here tonight. New Zealand First has set out what leadership should be. We have seen our leader the Rt Hon Winston Peters act in terms of what he said he would do in June 2003 and that is what the bill does.  
It is a fairly lengthy piece of legislation one way and another but essentially I will read out a couple of things to the honourable Gerry Brownlee whom I have tried to help from time to time. For example new clause 2A “Object” states: “The object of this Act is to preserve the public foreshore and seabed in perpetuity as the common heritage of all New Zealanders in a way that enables the protection by the Crown of the public foreshore and seabed on behalf of all the people of New Zealand”—including the Maori people of New Zealand if I can summarise the end of it.  
So all New Zealanders are protected under this bill and all New Zealanders have the right to use the public foreshore and seabed. That was a clause that was suggested at the select committee in part because the current purpose clause was not adequate enough and the members of the committee from all sides of the debate said that we need to make this clearer and say that it is on behalf of all the people of New Zealand. That was put to the committee and in consideration between the Labour Party and New Zealand First clause 2A was accepted because that is what the committee seemed to think was needed.  
Something had to be done of course because this particular area is in two strands: the first under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the second under the common law. Provisions under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act are tidied up here and hopefully the Court of Appeal will now have no difficulty in understanding that the term “foreshore and seabed” means just that and does not mean “land”. We have got a pretty good definition of foreshore and seabed and I am sure there will be no difficulty in that respect and of course that is important because currently there are 80 applications before the Maori Land Court. If all those 80 applications are successful Maori would own the entire coastline of New Zealand. So something had to be done and this bill does it while still protecting customary rights.  
The second leg is the common law. The NgatiApa decision is based on common law not on the Treaty of Waitangi as some other members have said. Something had to be done to codify the common law situation to make it clearer to everybody and that is what this bill does. I am a lawyer and when people go to court I really feel that after they have gone through the tests set out in this legislation—and the hurdle in this legislation is like Everest and a half with no oxygen; it is a pretty tough test—and they have won they should get something at the end of the day and they ought to have some idea of what it is they might get. It seemed to me to be common sense and fair that we should agree to some sort of clear redress.  
I was delighted to take part in creating a bill in which we tried to specify what it should be. I was a wee bit disappointed that we had phrases like “Maori reservation” and “trustees” although I can understand where the idea for trustees came from and there is a Maori word that means beachside but that I cannot repeat; it was just a bit too much for me. All the witnesses we heard suggested kaitiakitanga or guardianship. They wanted that to be made very clear. That was what they all felt was their way of life and it was a great pleasure to suggest that the phraseology in the bill should relate to guardianship and that we should have a foreshore and seabed reserve.  
But again I am a lawyer and I am a suspicious sort of bloke and I felt we ought to make it clear in the bill that people going on to these foreshore and seabed reserves—the ownership of which is still vested in the Crown and in which there is free access and navigation—do not have to pay to go on them. I can just imagine some bloke with a pickup sitting on the side of the beach saying: “Hey this is ours. You’ve got to pay a few dollars.” and all sorts of problems arise. We have seen what happened at Mount Tarawera. We saw it happen at Lake Taupo—and who gave away Lake Taupo? So this bill makes it quite clear that all New Zealanders have access to the foreshore and the seabed.  
I am reminded of the song which Mr Gerry Brownlee perhaps sang in his day: “This foreshore and seabed is your foreshore and seabed it’s my foreshore and seabed from Stewart Island to Cape Reinga and the Chatham Islands. This foreshore and seabed is here for you and for me and for all of us.”