Baldock Larry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Baldock Larry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17157] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 We have come to the final part of the Committee stage debate and I am pleased finally to get to a part that United Future can support. We will agree that the title “Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004” is a good one and we will be happy to vote for it. But up until this point as we have been going through the debate there has not been a single part that we have been able to support entirely because there are still many things that ought to be addressed in this legislation. We have however supported the Minister’s amendments throughout this process because we are engaged constructively in trying to make this bad bill a better bill. We are of the opinion that these amendments are accomplishing that.  
Winston Peters may be able to travel around New Zealand and claim that he has fixed it and that everything is now OK but we would not take that opinion. He will try to take all the credit for all of these amendments but many of them were discussed by the select committee in its deliberation and consideration and there are more than just New Zealand First that can claim credit for this. Winston Peters’ response to all the legitimate questions that people have around New Zealand is that we should trust him. He is the white knight in shining armour who will solve all our problems if we will just trust him. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What’s your poll? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: I say to Mr Peters that I am afraid that when we look at his recent polls at 5 percent he has to understand that he has a long way to go before a majority of New Zealanders will trust him again. United Future has been involved in a constructive engaged process to try to make this bill the best it can be and we have been listening to the concerns of submitters throughout this process. We have not supported any other parts in this legislation so far and I will give members a quick summary of the reasons. Part 1—the discussion surrounding public domain versus sole Crown ownership—meant that we could not support that part. Part 2 concerns the issues around the entrenchment of clause 12(2)(b) which we hoped this Parliament would do in response to the concerns about the future alienation of the foreshore and seabed.  
Part 3 is concerned with the applications for cancellation of a customary rights order. It is certainly not clear enough nor prohibitive enough to protect Maori from losing their interests in that regard. Regarding Part 4—it is a complete sham to try to make out as though anyone other than Maori could get a customary rights order and we had a robust debate about that last night. 
 In Part 5 there are the issues around putting it into the matters of national significance and there is also clause 100 which contains the crazy idea that once one reclaims some land and turns it into dry land one cannot ever get title to it. In Part 6 there are the issues around clause 112. There is still insufficient transparency about the deals that will go on between the Government and applicants. Clause 2 is another reason we cannot support it. We support the title issue but unfortunately we will not be able to support clause 2 in terms of the commencement date for this legislation because there is a problem with it and I will address the rest of my comments to that.  
Because most of this legislation will come into effect on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent there will not be sufficient time for many people around New Zealand to approach the Minister of Conservation as is set out in section 355AA(2)(b) in new clause 100A in order to get a written agreement with an applicant to vest a right title or interest in the relevant land. I imagine that the Minister of Conservation’s mailbox will be chock-a-block in the next couple of days as port authorities and people like the Wellington Reclamation Society the Waterfront Society and others seek to get a written agreement with the Minister of Conservation so that they may be able to get fee-simple title to the land they have paid for to get reclaimed which is going to be prohibited to them unless they have already got this written agreement.  
So I believe that the commencement date should be extended at least a couple of months to enable that process to occur. For that reason we will not be able to support the current commencement date which will probably be today or tomorrow after this bill is rushed through Parliament under urgency. The continued concerns we have expressed over the process of this legislation and the need for urgency this week has never been justified and the people of New Zealand ought to have been able to contemplate the massive number of amendments proposed in this legislation while they sat on the beach all through the summer. It would have been a great setting for further discussion and consultation on the beach under their umbrellas with their suntan lotion on. Therefore we could have resolved it.