Flavell Te Ururoa: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5370] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora kia ora ano tatou katoa. I want to pick up a couple of points in this particular part of Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill and put them for the Minister the Hon Mark Burton to consider. 
The first one is the definition of Crown stratum. It was covered partly in Part 1 but I want to raise it here even though some of my discussion has been ruled out of order. That is all right I will leave it there and move on to Part 2 clause 23. Clause 23(2) states: “The Crown retains the ownership of the Crown stratum.” That is the statement in the bill and the Minister in his explanatory note has added on: “as Crown land under the Land Act 1948”. The question to the Committee and people listening at home is how the Crown can retain ownership of something that it has not proven ownership to in law. How can the Crown claim something that it has not proved ownership to in law? And what is the reference to the Land Act of 1948? There is no mention whatsoever of the Crown stratum in that Act or in fact in any other current legislation. 
According to our research it is defined for the first time in the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. So here we have this notion of a Crown stratum that is all of a sudden being defined at this point in time—not in the past but here today. When asked about this in question time last week the Minister the Hon Mita Ririnui suggested that the words are new but the concept is not. This is interesting when we consider that there is a hell of a lot of care taken to ensure that the wording of bills is absolutely on the nose. Pinching is theft—same concept but different words. 
The Minister said that the Crown’s view was that it had ownership of the water stratum including the airspace on behalf of all New Zealanders. Here is the thing—Te Arawa could look after it quite well. Ehara matou i te iwi kaiponu. [ 
We are not selfish people. 
]  
We are willing to share as well and to work with all other New Zealanders. But this has not been tested. It has never been tested. It has not been considered. Unfortunately that seems to be how things work—the Crown just takes things when it wants to. It reminds me of other legislation that has been before Parliament. My research tells me about the Maori Affairs Act 1953; about Maori land being considered unproductive; and of course about the infamous Foreshore and Seabed Act. 
If the concept is not new why was there no mention of it in the Lake Taupo legislation the Ngai Tahu settlement or the Ngati Turangitukua claims settlement? The main problem with this is that the Crown has assumed ownership without having that assumption tested at all. The Maori Party will tell all of Maoridom: “Here we go again another confiscation.” We should let the process run and let the law follow its course rather than taking land away as we did with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. 
In June 1990 a Treaty claim was made called Wai 150 which was lodged by Sir Graham Latimer on behalf of the New Zealand Maori Council. The claim sought findings that Maori have rangatiratanga over the allocation of radio frequencies and that in the absence of an agreement with Maori the sale of frequency management licences under the Radiocommunications Act of 1989 would breach the Treaty of Waitangi by being prejudicial to the interests of Maori. The report noted: “The spectrum is a taonga to be shared by the tribes and by all mankind. Neither of the treaty partners can have monopoly rights to this resource.” Although the ownership issue is still to be fully tested the Waitangi Tribunal is clear that the Crown cannot have a monopoly on the resource. So here is a further treaty breach. The report continued “Tribal rangatiratanga gives Maori a greater right of access to the newly discovered spectrum. In any scheme of spectrum management it has rights greater than the general public and especially when it is being used for the protection of the taonga of the language and the culture.” All of these issues come to the table when we are considering this bill. 
Clause 25 “No rights to the water or aquatic life” states that the fee simple estate in the lake bed is vested in the trustees of the Te Arawa Lakes Trust. The bill states that this does not include rights or obligations to the water. Let us define what a lake is. Here are some definitions of a lake. The first is that it is “a body of fresh or salt water of considerable size surrounded by land”. The second definition is “a large inland body of fresh water or saltwater”.  
The Concise Oxford Dictionary  
states that a lake is a “large area of water surrounded by land”. During the consultation process people at various hui asked: “How the hang can you have a lake without water?”. Te Arawa has a lake back but there is one problem—there is no water in it. There is no clear definition in respect of this. 
So what are we getting back? We are getting the silt the pollution the paru and the tutae on the bottom and Te Arawa is supposed to be grateful. Unfortunately that is how it seems to be. It is also unfortunate that the trustees do not have any rights or obligations in respect of aquatic life in the lakes. Damn I wish we had that. But we get the plants that are attached to the lake bed. We get the plants—how awesome. Who looks after the clean-up? At this point in time there is no commitment from the district council although it has intimated that commitment may be there. Similarly Environment Bay of Plenty and Environment Waikato are supposed to be part of the deal somehow but there has been nothing from them. What about the Government? I am still waiting to hear but I understand that some money has been given. Here is the rub: the Te Arawa lakes settlement is $10 million and the clean-up will cost $200 million. So we have a bit of a problem. 
The hope will be that there is a commitment to follow through with cleaning up these lakes. We also hope that we will go back and revisit this notion of Crown stratum because it is very important. How can the Crown claim something that has not even been put into the law of the country? There is something wrong there. We will be making a big noise through Maori Television and whatever other medium we have to make sure that this information goes out to our people. Because in a subtle way we have another confiscation on its way and the Maori Party will not stand by to let that happen.