Jones Dail: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Jones Dail: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17087] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First has made it clear that there should be one law for all. This bill is an effort to provide for one law for all and the party that went to Orewa and talked about one law for all is going to oppose a clause that provides that. To put it very very simply that is what this clause is all about—one law for all New Zealanders. It does not matter whether a person is white brown recently arrived Asian or like myself of American parentage on one side—and like Tariana Turia; we both have American fathers—it is one law for all and the National Party opposes it. What a bunch of sour grapes from that party! Its members are really whingeing and whining on a clause that gives one law for all.  
The Rt Hon Winston Peters in his first statement on this issue in June last year made it clear that we would have a law on this bill irrespective of race. Here we have the clause that provides that provision—irrespective of race there is one law for all—and the National Party just cannot come to grips with the fact that New Zealand First has not only talked about one law for all but has acted and got a result.  
I would like to thank the Labour Party for taking us on board. It might have upset one or two of them to think that they had to do that but in an MMP environment we all have to realise that sometimes we have to work with one another. It has been very good working with Dr Cullen and other Labour members of Parliament. Of course we in New Zealand First know from our experience with the National Party that that party is extremely difficult to work with and at the end of the day we had to walk out on the National Party because it wanted to sell off New Zealand’s assets. But this is a “one law for all” bill.  
The first point about the Auckland anniversary regatta that Mr Brownlee raised—whether it could make a profit—is a matter of sour grapes. I presume that the anniversary regatta organisation is an incorporated society. Therefore as a non-profitmaking organisation that particular bunch of sour grapes on the part of Mr Brownlee is dead—drowned and buried at the bottom of Davy Jones’ locker.  
As far as the other provisions of this bill are concerned the bill is a first for New Zealand I think and New Zealand First is proud to be part of it. We know that this is not a common law right; it is a statutory right. So we can forget about McHugh and the rest. This is a statutory right—perhaps the first in the world. It may not be absolutely perfect because it is the first ever in the world. One does not actually need to have contiguous land in the way I read the bill. That again is something Mr Brownlee is unaware of and has not grasped. He should “read it and weep” as we used to say in the old days in the men’s common room when playing cards.  
Mr Brownlee is just not aware of the situation at all. I accept that he has had trouble reading it and I will give him another helping hand. Schedule 2 has been incorporated in these particular clauses so that is why schedule 2 has been deleted. That will help him understand why there are so many clauses about contents of applications and directions for service. But it gets down to Dr Mapp at the select committee. He thought he would be very clever and prove to officials that this type of provision could not work for the anniversary regatta. He must have spent about 5 or 10 minutes grilling the officials on this particular provision and all an official could say based on the wording in the legislation was: “Yes there is a possibility I would not say a probability”—officials are very cautious—“that the Auckland anniversary regatta could go ahead.”  
Of course one could say that they do not need it. They do not have to do that if they do not want to but the option is there. That is what life is about—the option for equality for all New Zealanders is in this bill. The Weymouth boating club came to us as a submitter. That club is going to apply for a customary rights order. A very smart young man who turned out to be a Labour supporter gave Dr Wayne Mapp and Ken Shirley a real telling off. But that boating club is going to go for that order. As far as this legislation is concerned it is a very simple test put out by the committee: the order applies to a group of natural persons whose members share a distinctive community of interest and they have to have been carrying out the practice since 1840. The Auckland anniversary regatta has been going since at least September 1840 and probably since before that. It has to be a practice that is integral to the distinctive cultural practices of a group and in those days sailing was how one got to New Zealand—one sailed here. There is nothing more integral to the British settlers of New Zealand than the fact that they sailed here.