Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:621;Page:17188] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 There is a famous saying in the Bible: “If the trumpet give an uncertain call who shall prepare himself to the battle?”. I have never seen a more disconsolate and desolate group than the National Party after that speech. Don Brash has been keeping his powder dry and it is still dry. Unbelievable! That speech was a repeat of his first reading speech—nothing new nothing learnt and nothing gained. 
The fact of the matter is that there have been dramatic clauses in this legislation that the mass majority of New Zealanders and Maori will come to believe in. There is one law for all in access egress passage and every other area of the law. 
Stephen Franks 
: Name one. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: There is one law for everyone—the same law. I understand why the ACT party would have difficulty with that because it came here with the strange notion that somehow the right to alienate New Zealand’s foreshore and seabed should be perpetrated in this law. But then we would never know in the end what might happen. That is the kind of anarchy ACT brings to politics. 
That was a first reading speech from the Crimean general. He observed the whole battle from the hillside; at no point did he ever actively participate. He said he would fight this legislation with every fibre of his being. That puts me in mind of Winston Churchill’s famous comment: “Some chicken! Some neck!” Well in this case it is: “No fibre! No being! No presence at all!”. Was the National Party ever in this situation before—a situation where its leader is so bereft of what it takes to be a leader in every respect? 
There is Pontius Pilate! He went to Orewa and made a speech which the media grabbed hold of. But who is responsible for bringing this law about? When will some journalist ask Don Brash why he cannot explain his party’s guilt in this matter? Te Ture Whenua Maori Act was National’s Act.  
Hon Member 
: You voted for it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No I did not vote for it. That member should go and get the  
Hansard 
 walk back in and tell the House the truth for the first time.  
 Here is my point. If all the matters after Orewa were looked at surely some journalist would have asked Dr Brash the following questions: why is he not taking responsibility for the very mess that has been created here? Was it not the National Party all by itself that created it back in 1993? How could that party get away with it?  
But the mob was out. With a lack of disciplined analysis from the media the myth was immediately begun after that day in June that somehow Maori would own the foreshore and seabed all the way to the 200-mile limit—and I suppose to the Ross Dependency as well. But no Maori leaders could possibly allow that sort of myth to be perpetrated when they knew demonstrably that it was not true—ever. 
The Court of Appeal never said that. Judge Hingston knows that full well—I know this personally—because he never believed that the Court of Appeal would say that sea was land. The Court of Appeal never said that in the way those Maori radicals have claimed. It could barely conceive of any group being successful. 
There is no doubt that NgatiPorou would be an exception. It has occupied ninety percent of its coast and has ever since 1840 without European settlement at all in many cases. But where else in New Zealand could any Maori be successful? 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Karikari Peninsula? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Maybe a part of it perhaps.  
Hon Member 
: Whananaki South? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Or Whananaki South—that is fine. We have been here for a thousand years and we have never denied any access as any European will tell us to our foreshore and seabed. We have never ever conceived of having an exclusive right. 
So the mob is out and there are two extremist positions: one on our right and one on our left. One is saying that when this legislation is passed Maori will get everything and the other is saying that they will get nothing. How can they both be right or have a petition that says sea will become land? 
I want to know how the National Party can get away from its guilt and wipe its hands of that in the way it has. Does it feel responsible? No. I have never heard one word from National members to say they are responsible for this mess. Do they feel guilty? No. How irresponsible is that? How irresponsible is it for people to come along with all their colleagues as guilty as sin and by their behaviour seek to blame someone else? It is always someone else. 
Mr Brian Connell accused me of being nurtured in the bosom of the National Party. That is what he said. I suppose he means Dail Jones as well. The trouble with being in the bosom of the National Party is that sooner or later as one of my colleagues said one feels a right tit. 
That man Don Brash called for this debate; he demanded it happen. He bragged about what he would do. We were promised a right volcano and all we heard in the end was a little geyser. Because he never took part in the debate we ended up with Labour and New Zealand First having to engage in a duel of wits with an unarmed opponent—the worst case I have ever seen.  
Has National ever said even today that it would repeal this legislation? No. Is that not the point? Don Brash has not even said he would repeal the legislation. The reason is that National’s argument is a humbug. It is just a nonsense. 
The National Party launched in Orewa with a borrowed speech. As I said back then and as I say now it is one thing to steal a man’s horse but it is quite something else to stay on its back as one is riding out of town. National members know that. 
Last Saturday National had no idea whether it would join the constitutional debate. Within 3 days it was out—and so will ACT be. The National Party which is bereft of principle and beliefs has trawled through the speeches of other parties has looked at the success of other parties’ strategies and has asked how it can duplicate those and be successful—be believed maybe because Don Brash is the anti-politician except that whenever he is asked about Maori policy he never knows.  
What is really his policy on people standing in the Maori seats in 2005? He said yes when he was first asked that question. He was then asked: “Excuse me but aren’t you against the Maori seats?”. He said yes. He was asked whether he would get rid of Maori Television and he said he did not know. When asked about kohanga reo he did not know. It just goes on and on. 
The middle and right of this country really deserve better. They deserve an alternative Government-in-waiting but they will never get one with that sort of leadership. It is really an abrogation of leadership. 
To close I remind members that we in New Zealand First promised—and I am grateful for the hard work of my colleague Dail Jones on this—that there would be Crown ownership. We promised that there would be one law. We promised that the customary rights originating from common law would be codified in this legislation. We promised all those things. After this Christmas every rational sane New Zealander will ask: “What was that all about?”. Thank God people in this country have New Zealand First because come Christmas paradise will have been restored.