Mapp Wayne: General Debates 
Mapp Wayne: General Debates 
[Volume:616;Page:12455] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Today is the day that New Zealand First was conned by the Government and the reason is that this bill is simply the December 17 package dressed up in drag and New Zealand First simply did not recognise that. There is only the shadow of Crown ownership. For the last 130 years we have had the full substance of Crown ownership. After this legislation is enacted there will be only the shadow of it. The reason is that the Maori Land Court will have the huge new jurisdiction of granting ancestral connection. 
What is the difference between mana and the ancestral connection of the 17 December package? 
In reality there is very little difference. What that will mean is co-management. We heard last month the Hon Parekura Horomia saying that is what he required—co-management. Why will he be voting for this bill this week—or this coming month? Because that is what the bill delivers—co-management. That means control and control is tantamount to ownership. So when the Government says it has delivered Crown ownership it is not as we would know it. It is not what New Zealanders have always understood it to be. This is the mere shadow not the substance of Crown ownership. 
In addition there is a whole new raft of provisions in the Resource Management Act. Everyone in the country has been saying we should simplify that Act and reduce its complexity. What is the Government’s answer? Its answer is to make that Act more complicated and provide for even more consultation more bureaucracy and more control. That is what is to happen. The effect of that is a veto because— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: This is an interesting topic. The member shouldn’t be boring. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: —as Mr Mallard knows a customary right is a property right and that means a veto. Sure the word is not there but when I read in the report that it means that councils have to decline to issue a resource consent that is the same as a veto. It is a veto in any other words. So this legislation far from solving the situation actually divides New Zealanders one against the other. It delivers to some New Zealanders more powers and more rights than others have. How is that equality before the law? 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What’s your solution? What would you do? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: National’s solution is simple: to provide the substance—full Crown ownership—instead of the shadow which is what New Zealand First has been sucked into by the Government. 
It was extraordinary to hear Mr Peters come along today and say that the New Zealand First members are the saviours when in reality New Zealanders—Maori and non-Maori alike—will find out they have been conned and New Zealand First has been a willing participant in that. I also heard Mr Peters saying that the legislation will not be race-based. I ask Government members and the New Zealand First members to tell me who can show ownership back to 1840. Who can show a continuous connection? That seems pretty simple to me and pretty obvious: it will be Maori and Maori alone. That is the reality of this legislation and no dressing up of it in language that talks about equality will get past the reality of inequality. 
There was a possibility of having a right answer to the problem delivered by the Court of Appeal. The Prime Minister and the Attorney-General actually had it right back in July last year. They were going to have a simple proposition one that everyone could understand which was to confirm Crown ownership. Now 9 months later we have a complicated bill that sets New Zealander against New Zealander. It sets some people above others on the basis of racial preferment. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Cosgrove may not like the truth of that but that is the reality of the bill that has been presented. 
I say let us deliver the reality of Crown ownership.