Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16984] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Whatever Ngati Wai had 2 years ago they have got today and they will still have it this Friday when the Foreshore and Seabed Bill is passed. But does anybody remember the surplus land at Paraparaumu Airport which was taken from the Maori people and then sold under a National Government? Did that Government offer the land back to the Maori people who had a legal right of first option? No. What did the Government do? It sold the land for a pittance to one of its mates denying the Maori people everything in that case. [ 
Interruption 
] The member asks what that has to do with the bill. What it has to do with the bill is that National members should not come and tell us about the National Party’s tutelage in so far as the Maori people are concerned. What has happened up north? All the Poor Knights Islands reserve was taken by a National Government off the Maori people. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Good reserve. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member says it is a good reserve. Right now promoted by him as well is a proposal for 16 times that area at Mimiwhangata—and he would defend that. That area which belongs to the Maori people there in terms of ancestral use he would walk all over. But all of a sudden the Maori people are meant to find some sanctuary in the National Party!  
 I remember that in 1993 and this is very apposite to the bill at 11.30 one day—I was not in the National Party caucus then but I remember the circumstances very well—in came Bill Birch and Jim Bolger and they were going to give the Maori wardens in the tribal zones the right of arrest. There was no notice given of that to any other party or even to the National Party. They were going to hijack the whole organisation. Now somebody here in the Chamber must remember that. Oh the National members are very quiet now. So what happened? That night on the  
Holmes  
show at 7 o’clock one National Party guy blew the whole thing wide open. And on the show later that night Jim Bolger came on and said the proposal had been dropped. That is the National Party. Those members rant and rave about Maori getting everything when their whole background is to have done things for Maori that Maori should not have done for them and not to do things for Maori that they should have done for them.  
I can recall National winding up with $92 million of debt on Maori kiwifruit orchards and when I said I would sue that Government for a failure to exercise a duty of care the National members ran around the gallery saying that I favoured Maoris. I had a whole lot of legal opinions and I said to Ruth Richardson we would sue that Government for the appalling way it had built that debt up over Maori kiwifruit farms. Did the National members say I was right? Oh no! Did they say that the legal opinion I had was irrefutable? Oh no! They just went around and tried to bag me.  
Hon Member 
: What’s that got to do with the bill? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: What it has to do with the bill is this. The National members have never understood this bill. They have never understood the select committee process. They have never understood the fundamentals that they claim to preach—one law and Crown ownership. Oh yes—and here is the rub. They get up talk about clause 2A and want to know why whanau hapu and iwi appear in that object clause. Well that is obvious. It is because Maori have a different perspective from the rest of the country and it differs iwi by iwi.  
Hon Member 
: It’s not obvious at all. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is obvious to anybody who understands Maori. But then again if one goes to Orewa and makes a speech in which one says that Maori have no culture at all then one will make the kind of fallacious mistake that those members keep on making.  
Clause 2A is in the bill because there are some people in this world who recognise that cultures are different in the way that they see things. People from different cultures can operate under the same law but the standards by which they may approach a problem or an issue could be in terms of their perspective different. It is as simple as that. So why is the ACT party doing a triple somersault and a side twist and trying to land on its feet? I heard Mr Prebble. He made much of that clause this morning did he not as if it was something incomprehensible that he could not understand. That is what he said—he said that no court would understand it. Well I tell members something. One could leave out the words “including the protection of the association of whanau hapu and iwi” but if one adds them in it just demonstrates that one may understand that different people see things in different ways.  
However whilst I am at it I will talk to the Maori Party and ask how many of its leadership have sold Maori land? What is the record on the sale of Maori land by the leadership of the Maori Party? Can that party say like I can that it has never sold an inch ever? The Maori Party should not come here with a whole lot of people and preach about the Maori people and their heritage when its background is ridden with people who have sold Maori land and worse still the people in its leadership have never been off the State’s teat since they left school. They have never been privately employed; they have been on the State’s teat since they left school. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I warn Mr Samuels for the last time.