Franks Stephen: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17004] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I wish to point out that Nanaia Mahuta has in fact voted against this. The comments made earlier about New Zealand First speakers still apply. I would like to know just what their reasons are. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has spoken many times and has given us no substantive reasons. He goes into history but gives us no substantive reasons for his support of this bill. We have had the benefit however of Government contributions—unusually in a debate of this kind.  
In particular the contribution from John Tamihere was interesting. He assured us that at no time have Maori ever wanted ownership of the seabed and foreshore. What were the 80 or so cases filed—which this bill cancels without replacement—about? I think John Tamihere has become accustomed to dealing with his colleagues those people who exhibit the bigotry of false expectations and allow Maori claimants to spout pure racism—the notion that Maori are somehow different from everyone else in the world in the sense that if they are offered an opportunity they will not take it.  
The opportunity this bill offers them is very clear. They can become guardians of public land and nothing in this bill will stop the guardians from becoming beach trolls. That is what this bill will justify. It will generate expectations among Maori—and it has already as we can tell by the agitation that has made the life of the Hon Michael Cullen so miserable for the last year. The expectation is that this is a soft substitute for genuine ownership. When they are given guardianship with no definition of what a guardian is or does they will treat guardianship as equivalent to ownership. If it is not they will think they have been robbed. And if they think they have been robbed they will feel justified in slashing car tyres and doing the other kinds of things we have already seen people do when they do not accept that the rights they have been given are the rights they are entitled to.  
I have looked for evidence that what is really intended here is a consolidation of proper legal rights. As a lawyer of course I note that in this part we have the definitions. The definitions show just how racist this bill is. It is racist because they are not law; they are a set of slogans and duplicitous words designed just to postpone definition until later.  
Let us look at a few. Clause 4 says “tikanga Maori” has the meaning it is given in section 4 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. When we go there and see what tikanga Maori means we see that it means “Maori customary values and practices”. That is not law. Any people can expect their customary values and practices to move as they want them to. Law is something you can know in advance. Law is something by which people can order their lives by looking at it and saying: “Here is the boundary.” A custom or practice does not have a boundary. Maori are not going to forgo the right to shift to move and to develop. We have heard that in this Chamber. So the definition of tikanga Maori is not a legal one.  
What else do we have? We have a definition of “recognised customary activity”. This bill tells me to look at the Resource Management Act where it is “an activity use or practice carried on exercised or followed under a customary rights order”. Where is “customary rights order” defined? It is defined in this Act. So we are deliberately sent in a circle because they do not want us to know that there is actually no definition. There is no statement anywhere of what a customary activity is so people can invent it and with the collusion of the Maori Land Court make it up as they go along.  
Because there is so much agitation from Tariana Turia the Greens and Maori about not getting real ownership New Zealanders are being encouraged to think that this settles it—that the Crown ownership in this bill is what it says. It is not; it is simply a platform for the assertion of completely undefined rights and interests that will enable kaitiakitanga—guardianship—to be set up with all the rights of beach trolls. The Government anticipates now that this will apply to 10 percent of the coastline. I venture to say that it will be all of the coastline. Why would it not be when this bill which looks as if it defines the terms does not even do so? One of the drafting conventions is that one does not define—