Calvert Hilary Jane: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Calvert Hilary Jane: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17331] 
HILARY CALVERT (ACT) 
: 
 I start by commending the honourable member on the other side of the Chamber who has spent much time this evening talking about tikanga and making it clear to all of us that tikanga is not something we all know means a particular thing; it has different meanings to different people and therefore should not be in our opinion a word defined in the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. 
I will talk about special resource management rights which are not available to other landowners under this bill. We have an example of how muddled this whole issue is. National and the Maori Party have invented a whole new property right. They had available to them freehold title and they had available to them the courts to determine whether people had common law property rights and to grant freehold title. They could have done that but instead they chose to produce a whole new property right. On the one hand it is less than freehold; it does not allow owners to do a lot of things that owners of a freehold title are usually able to do and that somebody who owns something is usually able to do. On the other hand it gives customary titleholders a lot more than private landowners. 
The Resource Management Act denies those who have scrimped and saved to buy their own property the right to use their land as they wish. Meanwhile those with customary title—which it is clear may arise in the future as a political gift rather than by a process of law—are given special rights to do what they like and undue influence to veto much-needed economic development. Of course we expect that many developments could be allowed to go ahead at a price. Most submitters who expressed a view on these special rights believe that there is a strong likelihood that title holders will charge for the granting of these rights. This will make many possible commercial activities too expensive to undertake. When an otherwise economic activity becomes uneconomic everybody is worse off. All this is on land that title holders according to the Government do not own freehold. 
In short these clauses allow a customary title holder the right to give or withhold permission for activities that resource consent is required for on any grounds with no right of appeal or objection; to demand fees from any and all comers for permissions without limit; and to define wahi tapu areas to control not merely the use of a wahi tapu site but the possibility of the use of such areas by the payment of koha. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Koha hoha? 
HILARY CALVERT 
: Excuse me—koha. These rights are not available to any other New Zealanders. We should not have special laws based on race in New Zealand. 
The bill still allows iwi to have special conservation permission rights that can be declined or given for special conservation activities. The Environmental Defence Society which came along to the submission process—in good faith I might add—did a very good job of summing up the argument against this. It like many objects to the gifting of far stronger rights than those of private landowners. There is also a huge conflict of interest for many iwi here. Those with financial interests in aquaculture and commercial fishing cannot be expected to make impartial or rational decisions on the extension of marine reserves. 
In Subpart 3 there is a right for customary marine title holders to prepare their own planning documents and the preparation of these planning documents is a serious issue. They can include all areas where the customary marine title holder—