Gudgeon Bill: Maori Fisheries Bill — First Reading 
Gudgeon Bill: Maori Fisheries Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:614;Page:10479] 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 To quote from the explanatory note of the bill: “The report  
He Kawai Amokura 
 was delivered to the Minister on 9 May 2003 and accepted by the Minister on 7 June 2003. … The purpose of the Bill is to implement the agreements made in the Deed of Settlement and to provide for the development of iwi interests in fisheries and fishing”. 
In recent times important issues such as the Ngati Ruanui land claims and the claim in process with Ngati Tama have been within the jurisdiction of the Maori Affairs Committee which has been very competent in the handling of those issues. The Maori Fisheries Bill is within the bounds of the Crown and Maoridom—just as land issues have been—and now the Government wants to form another committee when there is already one in place. Why is that? The Maori Affairs Committee is already in place and ready to go. New Zealand First does not support the bill going to an ad hoc committee as we have heard previously from our leader Winston Peters but supports this bill going to the Maori Affairs Committee. I feel that select committee is competent enough to handle the affairs of Maori. When issues such as tikanga come before the Maori Affairs Committee and we have to go on to the marae to explain the issues to the people the select committee is familiar with them. I would say all those who are on that select committee are familiar with te reo and with the tikanga of all iwi and hapu throughout the nation. 
 So why is this ad hoc committee to be formed? As Mr Peters said a chairperson may be appointed—I say may be but I hope not—to direct issues that he or she is not familiar with. The meeting of that select committee could be like Cinderella: the shoes will be picked up later on and then we will find out whom the owners are. Is that what is going to happen with regard to the fisheries and the Maori people when someone else has been allocated the amount that they are entitled to? We have enough problems amongst Maoridom as it is and we need to get these issues straight. I wonder what the Privy Council would say about this issue if it were taken to the Privy Council—or will that just happen in the building that is to be refurbished in another couple of years’ time? And who will pull the strings? The ones pulling the strings will say “Jump” and the answer will be “How high?”. How high are they going to jump? 
The Maori Affairs Committee is in place now and New Zealand First supports the move to bring this bill before that committee. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to advise the House that the ACT party will vote against the Maori Fisheries Bill. I say to the two old parties that they should think very carefully about whether they ratify this proposal because it contains within it many further injustices. I say to the National Party that just because it put forward a bill—and Mr Peters is right—in 1992 that is not a reason for it to continue to support it. If one looks at the  
Hansard 
 record one sees it is true that Mr Peters voted against that bill. I was a member of the Labour Party then; I was not allowed to vote against it. But if members read my speech they will see that I predicted that the allocation model would lead to a huge legal battle. Anyone who is a lawyer could see—and Mr Peters and I could see—that what the Government of the day did was to say it was handing over an allocation of fish to Maori without giving them any advice as to how it was to be apportioned and was then asking them to settle that amongst themselves. People criticise Maori for taking such an amount of time to do that but I say there would have been problems if we took any group of New Zealanders and said there was $700 million worth of assets that we did not know who owned them and that those people should sort that out amongst themselves. It is a miracle that Maori have come up with any sort of agreement at all. But just because that is a miracle it is no reason for us then to say that the quota allocation model is so fragile that we should rubber-stamp it. 
The first thing I want to say for the record and to those who are appointed to the new committee—and I note that the Maori Affairs Committee is not being trusted by the Government to consider the bill—is that this is not a Treaty of Waitangi settlement. I have consulted the Clerk and the advice that the Crown is trying to put around that this bill cannot be amended by the select committee is not right. This is a bill that a select committee is able to look at in order to see whether it is just. When we look at the bill we can see immediately that it is not just. Members do not have to take my word for that. We have had an opinion from a High Court Judge Mr Justice McGechan and he has already pointed out that there are some very very odd things in the formula. The whole formula is pretty odd but one of the odd things relates to the coastline. The more coastline that an iwi has the more quota it gets. However the Kaipara Harbour which is the largest harbour in the Southern Hemisphere— 
John Carter 
: The second-largest in the world. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I thank the local member. And of course the Kaipara Harbour is a very good fishing area because there are maraes all around it. Is that coastline counted? No. Who made that decision? It would not help Sir Tipene O’Regan’s tribe would it? Then if we look at the coastal spit off Nelson— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Farewell Spit. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Is Farewell Spit counted? Yes right up one side and down the other for another 52 kilometres. Which tribe happens to benefit from that? I believe that members of Parliament are entitled to look at those things even if the local Maori members did not think they were worth looking at. 
I was the Minister who first started this whole thing off. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: That’s right. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: That is right. David Lange passed the issue over to me and the offer I made was more generous than this one. I said that if any Maori wished to go fishing the Crown would find quota for him or her right up to 50 percent of the total allocation. Of course “Sir Tipene and Co.” was not in favour of that because it did not want to go fishing. It did not want to work. Sir Tipene O’Regan made it quite clear that he just wanted to be a landlord and to take the rent. He saw the quota allocation as a sort of cargo cult. I still think that is wrong. 
The ACT party is in favour of a property settlement. We are in favour of this House honouring the treaty and of fisheries being owned by Maori. If we do that of course we then have to look at the fisheries that Maori had in 1840—where Maori were likely to have been fishing—and at the technology they had available to them. Does this bill do that? No it does not. We find that under this bill anything from above a depth of 300 metres is deemed to be a coastal fishery. That means that we have fisheries areas going into the sub-Antarctic being described as the local fisheries of Ngai Tahu. There is no way whatsoever that in 1840 Ngai Tahu fished them. In that sense this model is not an honouring of the treaty. 
But there are further principles that apply. This model does not give fisheries to the Maori hapu and iwi that had them. This is a racial settlement; it is race-based. It says that if one happens to be Maori one is entitled to a certain percentage of the fisheries allocation because of one’s race. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Race-based welfare. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I call it “cargo-cultism”. So there are iwi that have no coastal area being granted quota but then there is a further requirement. Some Maori members want to represent urban Maori and they have had them put in on a racial basis. I say this to Mr Tamihere: if that is the proper criterion and if that is the right way to do it— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Mailbox tribes. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: The member calls them mailbox tribes. Justice McGechan pointed out that if that is the basis on which those members are doing the allocation then urban Maori are not being treated fairly. He is basically saying that if the Government is going to use a population basis then every Maori in New Zealand should be treated fairly and that it is illogical to treat urban Maori differently from others. I ask Mr Tamihere this: if the judge thinks that is unjust then why is Mr Tamihere supporting it? Perhaps he did not hear me. If a High Court judge as recently as last Friday when making a decision before Parliament considered this bill  says that the bill is unjust to urban Maori why is Mr Tamihere as a Minister and as the local member who says he champions urban Maori supporting the bill? [ 
Interruption 
] Oh he says it is because he loves them—it is aroha. I say that the real reason is that Mr Tamihere puts loyalty to the Labour Party and his position in Cabinet ahead of looking after his own people. He knows that this is an unjust bill. 
I also say to the House that we are being told by Sir Tipene O’Regan and others that 91 percent of all iwi support this bill. Rubbish! Absolute nonsense! But if they believe that is so and if they think that that is an important principle why not put it to the test by having a vote? Why not go and ask the iwi? But of course we know that the Government will not do that. 
Let me make it clear what I think should happen. I believe that this House has to take responsibility because the proposal comes from a Government bill. Yes the ACT party is prepared to recognise property rights and we say it is possible to have property rights in fishing. Of course the property right that Maori had in 1840 was the right to fish. That is how they put it. We can identify even now without much difficulty the fishing areas that particular Maori tribes and iwi had. That is what we should have done and we should have done that in a proper legal fashion. But instead we have a squalid political deal with some Maori groups that are now powerful and rich and they have actually drawn up the maps themselves. We all know that the maps are unjust; we all know they are unfair. And we also know something else. We know that on this particular matter the Rt Hon Winston Peters is right. The average Maori in New Zealand has not seen a snapper and what is more we know that under this bill Maori never will see one. This bill is actually an injustice. 
I say to the National Party members that they should rethink their position. If they rethink their position if New Zealand First is against it if ACT is also against it and if the United Future members for the first time in their lives stop being a doormat we can start to get close to stopping this bill. I listened to the Green Party members. I do not know quite why they are against the bill but apparently they are. I am prepared to take their vote and we can then defeat this nonsense.