Boscawen John: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Boscawen John: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17187] 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT Party strongly opposes this legislation in the same way that the ACT Party opposed the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004. In fact the ACT Party is the only party that has had a consistent policy a policy based entirely on principle in its opposition to the provisions of this bill. The ACT Party over the next 2 or 3 days with your support Mr Chairperson will take the opportunity to put its arguments out into the public domain and to repeat those arguments because they are powerful arguments. They are arguments that have been ignored by the Government and they need to be understood by all New Zealanders. 
Let me comment very briefly on the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition who commented on the preamble. He said that the Prime Minister promised that this bill would not proceed unless it had widespread support. We in this Chamber know today that this bill does not have widespread support. The suggestion that it has widespread support is an absolute fiction. The preamble sets out the history of this bill and of how we got to this stage. As the Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson points out it started with the decision in the Ngati Apa case in 2003. The name Ngati Apa is bandied around the Chamber. Most of the members of this House would know some of the background but probably few members of the New Zealand public would know it. In the Ngati Apa decision we had nine iwi from the upper South Island— 
Rahui Katene 
: Eight. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: I am told it was eight. I am happy to be corrected on points of fact but it was more than just one iwi. It was more than just Ngati Apa iwi; there were eight iwi. The eight brought a case asking for recognition of what they said their customary rights were to parts of the seabed of the Marlborough Sounds. Ngati Apa was just one of those iwi—just one of those eight iwi. If you like they have lent their name to this case which is now etched in the memories and the history of the debate on this bill. 
They brought a case that went all the way to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal accepted their claim to the extent that they were seeking to have their case heard in the Maori Land Court which had previously been denied to them. The right to bring their claim had been denied to them in the High Court. The High Court acted on a decision of the Court of Appeal in 1963—the Ninety Mile Beach decision. It was expected that the Court of Appeal when it heard this case in 2002 would follow the decision in 1963 but it did not to the surprise of all including I suspect the Prime Minister and the deputy leader of the Government of the time. The Court of Appeal decided that Ngati Apa and the other seven iwi were entitled to go to court. 
It is very important to understand what the court decided and what it did not decide. That is the crux of this issue. The court did not decide that Ngati Apa and the other seven iwi had customary title to the seabed and foreshore—it did not say that. There was a widespread misrepresentation or misunderstanding of that decision. The decision did not say that. What the Court of Appeal said was that Ngati Apa had the right to go to court—the right to go to court. That is a right that the ACT Party has consistently spoken up for and defended ever since the decision was brought down by Justice Sian Elias and her four colleagues in 2003—the right to go to court. 
When the previous Labour Government announced within 36 hours of that decision that it would pass legislation to take away that right or certainly to severely restrict it the ACT Party opposed it. We know the background. We know that Tariana Turia gave up her ministerial position in the Labour Government stood in a by-election and formed the Maori Party. It is important to understand that that decision said that iwi have the right to go to court and nothing more. In fact if it did say anything more what the judges said was that it was a very very high test—a very very high test to award customary title. 
I carry on to the next recital of the preamble recital (2). It talks about the bitterness and the difficulty that the passing of that legislation in 2003 created. As a consequence when National was elected into Government it formed a confidence and supply agreement with the Maori Party. The National Government agreed with the Maori Party to review the Foreshore and Seabed Act. As the Attorney-General says and as is laid out in recital (3) of the preamble the ministerial review panel recommended that the Act should be scrapped and replaced. Following that we had this document here which was produced by the office of the Hon Christopher Finlayson. It is called “Reviewing the Foreshore and Seabed Act”. It is a very concise document. I recommend to anyone who has followed this issue to read what this document says. I am sure it can be downloaded from the internet—I presume it can be. 
The interesting thing about this document is that the Attorney-General announced his decision to call this review to publish this review the week before Easter 2009 and he announced that he was closing submissions on 30 April. That allowed only 4 weeks for the people of New Zealand to digest this document to understand the history and to make their submissions. What we now know is that 1500 organisations made a submission on it. I say that we now know that but we did not know that in May we did not know that in June of last year we did not know it even in July or in August because when the Attorney-General was asked to release the submissions that were made on the document he refused to do so he continually refused to do so and it was not until an Official Information Act request was lodged that he reluctantly released those submissions late last year. What do we know? We know that 90 percent of the people who made submissions on this document oppose what the Government proposes. The Government set out four options. It was very clear from reading this document that option four the Government’s proposed option was opposed by 90 percent of submitters. 
We come now to recital (3) of preamble which refers to the bill. The process of the bill passing through this Parliament has been an absolute disgrace—an absolute disgrace. I sat as a member of the Maori Affairs Committee which travelled around New Zealand hearing submissions on this bill. I was supported by my colleague Hilary Calvert. The select committee heard submissions on this bill in Whangarei in Auckland in Tauranga in Wellington in Blenheim and in Christchurch. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Hilary Calvert was there most of the time not John Boscawen. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: I am very happy to respond to the taunts of Mr Tau Henare. He was the chair of that committee and clearly he has a very bad memory. I attended the sittings in Whangarei in Auckland in Wellington and in Blenheim. Hilary Calvert also attended hearings in Tauranga in Christchurch and in Auckland. The ACT Party was represented. We listened to the people. I say on behalf of my colleague Hilary Calvert who will speak on the preamble later in this debate if the Chair gives her the call that we were absolutely shocked at the way that some of the submitters were treated by the select committee. They were treated discourteously. People of New Zealand come along they get involved in the parliamentary process they make submissions but they do not come along expecting to be abused to be spoken down to and to be called liars. 
What came out of that select committee? There were 4500 or was it 5000 submissions. What we do know is that an overwhelming number of submissions on the bill strongly opposed it. Now we come to the farce—the absolute farce—with which the members of the select committee considered those 4500 submissions. They met together on the first afternoon that Parliament sat this year and considered a 520-page report—520 pages—in less than 2 hours. They wrote a report the following day the report of the majority which was one page—one page. They summarised this issue in one page. Attached to that page were 40 pages of recommended changes.