Collins Judith: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Collins Judith: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5530] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I congratulate the Minister Marian Hobbs on being in the chair and taking questions tonight. I will say this about her: I have never seen her knitting while she has been the Minister in the chair. That is a good point and it is nice to be able to say that. I am very sorry to hear she has been sick. I thank her for being here tonight and enlightening us about letters and advice and the difference between them and about officials and Meridian. 
I would like to speak tonight about the spiritual issues in this bill. I take up the point made by my colleague the Hon Georgina te Heuheu about how constantly going on and on about spirituality in bills like this serves to bring Maori into disrepute. In addition I need to say that Maori are not the only people who have spirituality. Again I think that was something that Georgina te Heuheu mentioned—that the bill was not only about Maori spirituality. I have Irish heritage and if members ever ask people who have Irish heritage how they feel about land they will note that they tend to get very emotional because the Irish were not allowed to own land in their own country. It is a shame they did not have a treaty. 
One of the problems with spirituality connected to land is that sometimes families sell that land. My own family sold its land in the Waikato after about 50 years. That was the only home I felt was mine and my mother sold it just before she died. I feel a deep spirituality towards that land—so deep that I refuse to go anywhere near it at the moment because it would upset me. I know that the land might not be exactly the same as my parents left it and it would upset me to see that. So spirituality is there but I will tell members this: it is none of my business what the current owners do to that land. It has nothing to do with me— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It will after this Act is passed. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes. My mother sold the land for fair value. It is a shame she did not keep it for a few more years as it would have been of more value but she sold it for fair value to people who bought it honestly. It is their right to do whatever they want on that land as long as it does not affect other people or unnecessarily damage the property of others or the environment. Under this bill I believe I would have the right to say to the current owners of that land: “You shall not do anything on this land because it is a place of spiritual significance to me. There are things that have happened on that land that mean a tremendous amount to me and my family.” That is not right. We cannot have that sort of silly legislation because once people sell land they have to be able to let go and let other people get on to it. The world does not stop turning because we happen to have an allegiance to land or whatever. 
People who own land or who wish to buy land must know for certain what they are getting. They cannot buy land pay a tremendous amount of money for it put themselves into debt shift their families on to the land and then be told that they cannot do what they want to do because someone whose family happened to own the land 200 years ago is now saying they cannot. That is absolute nonsense. There is no reason even to say 200 years ago—it could be 50 years ago 10 years ago or 5 years ago because nothing is defined. 
I congratulate the Minister on saying tonight that she had concerns about that. Good on her for saying that. She has real concerns so why are we rushing this legislation through? It has not even been back to a select committee or had proper submissions on it since all those new provisions have gone in. If the Minister and the other Labour members who have spoken tonight are right when they say that there was extensive consultation which bill was there extensive consultation on? It was of course the No. 1 bill and there have been significant changes since then. The first bill was the one before the No. 1 bill—Simon Upton’s bill. What has happened is that there have been changes and those were so significant that when the rebel committee set itself up it had over 30 submissions from the very people who had been heard before.