Cullen Michael: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Cullen Michael: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17013] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 Let me just try to respond as best I can to that sort of farrago of paranoid nonsense because that is what it actually was. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: The Prime Minister said so. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No the Prime Minister did not say that. The member really has got to stop misquoting people in the House in that way. Clause 11 says that the public foreshore and seabed is vested in the Crown. That then has to be judged against another constitutional fact in New Zealand which is that Parliament is sovereign and no Parliament can bind its successor. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I do not see much point in laughing about that. Some of us believe it is a fairly important principle of our constitution. I invite the member to shut up for a minute—if he does not listen at home he at least should listen here—and listen to what would happen if clause 12 did not say that alienation cannot occur except by a special Act of Parliament or under section 355 of the Resource Management Act. What does the member think would happen? Under this bill if there was no mention in clause 12 of that the Crown could alienate public foreshore and seabed by means simply of agreement or sale. All that subclause (2) of clause 12 says is that the only mechanism by which that can be done is under section 355—and as the member will note that is subsequently actually amended in a very significant manner so that the only alienation that can occur is in terms of a perpetual leasehold as opposed to a freehold title—or by Act of Parliament. 
But our saying that actually does not change the fact that an Act of Parliament could change that provision in clause 11 in any case. If clause 12 did not exist—and this is where it is a paranoid farrago of nonsense—the reality would be that there would be less protection for Crown ownership. The law is as simple as that on this point. Why members of the National Party keep going into these issues in that form I do not know. They are actually making fools of themselves amongst the general public who understand some of these things. 
Two members are moving entrenching clauses. The point I would make first of all is that this Parliament has only ever passed entrenching clauses on matters where it is actually determining the interests of its own members and the reason for the entrenching clause is to prevent a simple majority affecting the rights of the minority in that respect in certain parts of the Electoral Act. They are very specific and they themselves of course have been there for a long time and have acquired a strong conventional status in that respect. We have done it nowhere else and I do not believe we should start going down the route of entrenching clauses in general. I think they are bad law and should be confined to cases such as the Electoral Act. 
In the case of the Green amendment I am particularly opposed because it distinguishes between a super majority required for an alienation generally and a simple majority required for an alienation in the context of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement. It does seem to me that that would open up the bill to very strong accusations of having effectively an ethnic-based or racist-based element within it. It would have to be across the board as Mr Baldock’s amendment is across the board. But the Government cannot support that amendment and of course as I am sure the member realises to pass a 75 percent entrenching clause requires 90 members of the House to vote for it and therefore of course that amendment will actually fail.