Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:624;Page:19147] 
1. METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Attorney-General 
: Does he believe the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 provides an appropriate process for recognising Maori customary rights and exercising Crown ownership responsibilities in the coastal marine area; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Attorney-General) 
: 
 Yes it provides recognition for Maori customary usage rights and for redress where customary title might have existed and can be demonstrated to the High Court. It also maintains all the normal environmental procedures in relation to the coastal resource. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Minister confirm that as the full legal owner of the seabed the Crown would stand to make tens of millions of dollars through royalties from the proposal of Black Sand Exploration Ltd to strip-mine over 3000 square kilometres of the seabed—an area equivalent to the size of Stewart Island? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: An application has not yet been received for mining. An application has been received for an exploration permit. The situation in relation to that is completely unchanged by the Foreshore and Seabed Act. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What provisions does the Act contain to prevent further privatisation of the foreshore and seabed? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Act vests full legal and beneficial ownership in the Crown explicitly states that the public foreshore and seabed is not to be alienated and provides that if any future Government wishes to sell any property on the foreshore and seabed it will need a special Act of Parliament to do so. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Has the Minister seen the claims made by the United Nations committee that was so critical of this legislation in New Zealand a committee of “experts of high moral standing and acknowledged impartiality” that includes countries like Egypt Algeria Guatemala Burkina Faso India Pakistan China and South Africa; and would he care to tell the House which of those countries have a race discrimination record worse than that of New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: None that I am aware of. If of course the Green Party now sees Algeria as a country with a better human rights record than New Zealand then presumably it would be keen to see Mr Ahmed Zaoui return to it. 
Metiria Turei 
: Is it not true that the Government has changed the tax regime in favour of foreign mineral exploration companies such as Black Sand Exploration Ltd and is that not a vindication of Maori objections to the Foreshore and Seabed Act that Crown ownership under the Act would effectively lead to Crown sale of our precious marine resources? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think that you need to look at the primary question that is set down. Question time is the opportunity for all members of the House to question Ministers and those questions should be within the bounds of the question set down on the Order Paper. I do not see how a member can ask a Minister to answer questions about the Crown’s mineral regime at a time like this—quite honestly it is unfair to the rest of the House. 
Metiria Turei 
: The supplementary question referred explicitly to the Foreshore and Seabed Act which is the subject of the primary question. The primary question is worded generally around issues related to the Foreshore and Seabed Act to which my supplementary question applies. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The question is wide. I think the supplementary question is within particularly the second part of it so I ask the Minister to respond. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There is a fallacy contained within the member’s question. The Foreshore and Seabed Act does not affect in the least the regime in relation to Crown minerals. 
Tariana Turia 
: How will the new situation of extinguishment be explained in the State report back to the United Nations? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Given that one of the questions asked by a member of the committee was: “What is the Crown?” probably with some difficulty in some cases but we will still be quite convinced by the answer we give. 
Metiria Turei 
: Is the Minister aware of the comment by a professor of marine geology about Black Sand Exploration’s proposal to strip-mine the sea: “Any animal that gets caught in the dredging process will be destroyed” and how does that “… preserve the public foreshore and seabed in perpetuity as the common heritage of all New Zealanders” as set out in the Foreshore and Seabed Act? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I repeat: the Foreshore and Seabed Act does not change the legislation and the regime in relation to the mining of those resources. If an exploration permit is approved by officials it will still require consent from local authorities for any action to occur. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Government will first decide whether it wants to profit from environmentally destructive mining and then later ask local councils to deal with the adverse effects; and does he not think that New Zealanders want through the Crown ownership provided for in the Foreshore and Seabed Act the Government to protect the long-term sustainability of our precious marine resources rather than seek short-term profits? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Having just had a visit from the Norwegian Prime Minister who has available at his command resources of some hundreds of billions of US dollars from petroleum mining I am simply amazed that anybody should think that we should never engage in any form of exploitation of mineral resources. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why does the Government seem to be prepared to be criticised by that UN committee over the foreshore and seabed matter when on an issue such as cosseting prisoners it will not assert sovereignty strongly enough to tell the UN that we will decide whether we pay compensation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Government has made its position clear in response to the United Nations committee report which was quite a moderate report by the standards of that committee. If one compares it with the report the Australians received in the late 1990s one finds we got off relatively lightly I think it could be said. We will be happy to comply with presenting a report to the United Nations committee at the end of the year but New Zealand remains a sovereign country that is not governed by a United Nations committee.