Carter David: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
Carter David: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17736] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 We now come to the contentious part of the Aquaculture Reform Bill and why the National Party will oppose it. There was talk throughout the select committee process about unfinished business associated with the 1992 deed of settlement. I did what any responsible member of the select committee should have done: I sourced a copy of the deed of settlement and read it. That deed of settlement settled all commercial-fishing interests—coastal inshore and offshore. There was no unfinished business in that document signed by Maori of the day as a full and final settlement. 
We told officials and many other people that if there was some unfinished business in something as major as the deed of settlement there would be a paper trail. We were assured that there would be a paper trail. The more we asked for it the less available that paper trail was. There is no paper trail of this unfinished business. There is in fact no unfinished business. What we have here is folklore associated with Maori determining that they would not mind another bite of the cherry and the Labour Government being silly enough to see it as a means of settling its embarrassment over the seabed and foreshore legislation. 
The Government kept saying to us that it was based on a Crown Law opinion. After weeks and weeks of demanding the Crown Law opinion—in fact I got the select committee members to the stage that they were prepared to go on strike and not do any more consideration of the legislation until we had received that vital Crown Law opinion—we finally received it. I would like to describe it as five pages of waffle but I can describe only the first two pages as waffle because the next three pages of that all-important document are completely blanked out. That is the basis on which the Labour Government is giving up to 40 percent of future aquaculture space to Maori: a legal opinion from Crown Law from one Mr Peter Andrew that is so poor that the Minister is so embarrassed by it that he causes it to be presented to the select committee with three pages blanked out. 
The select committee did happen to receive some other quite interesting information which appeared unannounced. It was not requested by the select committee because we did not know that it existed. It was information collated by Gardiner and Parata which I understand is a firm of consultants here in Wellington. It was dated 20 May 2002 and we were told that it was commissioned by Te PuniKokiri. Gardiner and Parata went back amongst people it knew to be associated with the original negotiation of the deed of settlement to ask whether there was any truth to the argument that there was unfinished business. 
The first person it talked to was Phil Major a senior adviser to the then Minister of Fisheries the Hon Doug Kidd. It is worth noting that he currently works in Mr Sutton’s office. Was aquaculture excluded from the deed of settlement? Mr Major’s response was that he could not recall the matter being explicitly on the table. The firm then interviewed the Hon Doug Kidd and asked him whether aquaculture had been excluded. He said there would be no documentary trail because his recall was that the matter had been raised briefly on one occasion but that it was of no great substance. It then interviewed the Rt Hon Doug Graham. Similarly he made the comment that aquaculture had not been on the table. It interviewed DeneseHenare who apparently was a negotiator with Bob Mahuta and she was able to state quite categorically that she did not recall any substantive discussion or any documentation being tabled on aquaculture. 
They are only some of the people whom Gardiner and Parata interviewed. That clearly proves to me and to anybody interested in the truth that aquaculture was never on the table during the discussion of the 1992 settlement. Furthermore anybody who reads the 1992 settlement will see that it was signed up to by Maori as a full and final settlement of the grievances associated with commercial fishing yet 12 years later we are reinventing the wheel and recreating the grievance industry for generations to come. I say to the Minister in the chair the Hon Benson-Pope: “Shame on you for being involved in this legislation.” I also say: “Shame on the Labour Party for being involved in this legislation and shame on New Zealand First for being prepared to support this legislation which is without foundation.” 
I would be prepared to accept this folklore of unfinished business if anybody had presented any evidence at all of it to the select committee. At one stage the Hon Dover Samuels revealed to the committee that he had been one of the Maori negotiators. That was news I think to both the Labour members and the National members on the committee. He promised to table written documentation proving absolutely that aquaculture had been deliberately put to one side but I tell Dover Samuels that to date I am still waiting for those papers. I guarantee that we will never receive them because they do not exist. Folklore has developed around there being unfinished business; it is without foundation but we are passing legislation that will gift to Maori up to 40 percent of aquaculture space. 
Enough grievance has been associated with the Treaty of Waitangi. The National Party has a proud record of moving legislation through the House to put those grievances behind New Zealand. Yet sadly tonight we are reopening those grievances and without justification. Anybody who has studied this legislation as I have will note that in the deed of settlement with NgaiTahu we specifically gave them the right to have 10 percent of new aquaculture space by pre-emptive tender. It was not a gift but they had the right to obtain 10 percent by that means. Why would NgaiTahu have negotiated that right in the 1996 settlement if they genuinely believed there was unfinished business? The truth is they knew that fisheries had been tidied up with the 1992 settlement. They took the opportunity of their own settlement to obtain that pre-emptive right and I have no problem with that—indeed I congratulate them. But for anybody in this Chamber to argue that the matter was not totally dealt with by Doug Kidd and Doug Graham in 1992 is wrong. 
Labour claims that the settlement was rushed. Yes it was. There was a one-off opportunity associated with Brierley’s selling down Sealord’s. The settlement was then rushed through the House and I accept that but the Labour Party signed on to it. It saw it as a good way of settling Maori grievances associated with commercial fishing. Now 14 years later Labour members are flocking to the other side of the debate in an effort to save their own embarrassment around the seabed and foreshore issue. 
This is unprincipled legislation in gifting 40 percent of aquaculture space to Maori. I say that that is wrong and that this matter will cause problems with race relations for a long time to come. The Minister in the chair should stand and take the opportunity to present any documentation that shows that there was unfinished business. But I know he will not be able to do it.