Turia Tariana: General Debate 
Turia Tariana: General Debate 
[Volume:638;Page:8196] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker tenatatou katoa. Just a month ago the world’s largest private mining corporation Rio Tinto purchased a 60 percent interest in the iron ore prospecting licence to explore seabed mining possibilities offshore from Taranaki. This is a company that won a “Dirty Digger Award” for its continued use of tailings disposal in the Asia-Pacific pouring millions of tonnes of toxic mine wastes into the ocean and smothering vital organisms on the seabed. At about the same time Seafield Resources was granted a mining licence covering about 10000 square kilometres off the South Island’s West Coast between Karamea and Jackson Head in water depths of up to 125 metres. 
The pigeons are coming home to roost. Since the enactment of the Foreshore and Seabed Act the Government by way of the Crown Minerals agency has auctioned areas of the seabed for mineral and petroleum exploration—or more accurately exploitation. The Act has given the Crown a clear mandate or so it thinks to sell off all coastal resources including the sand to foreign interests. It is a question of justice law equality public access and property rights all tied up in one. 
This House may recall the months in which thousands upon thousands of New Zealanders asserted their mana rangatira over the coast and surrounding areas by marching on Parliament to protect their customary ownership of the foreshore and seabed. The Government reaction to the NgatiApa case had been swift and violent extinguishing Maori ownership through the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Yet here we have another appropriation secretly and silently being conducted under the ignorant gaze of all New Zealanders who are unaware that the so-called public access and public resources are being transferred to overseas interests. 
The pervasive policy talk of the Foreshore and Seabed Act was that taonga tuku iho of tangata whenua would instead be vested in public ownership. The bitter irony for New Zealand is in our now seeing that what happened to Maori with the foreshore and seabed is now happening to all the peoples of this nation. Remember the principle of access—that the foreshore and seabed should be public domain with open access for all New Zealanders? It is another Tui truism from this Government—yeah right! The Government is denying due process exploiting our natural resources and selling offshore yet it is packaging the deal as being in the best interests of the nation. 
In Jared Diamond’s  
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed 
 we are told that societies fail when the most prosaic elements of the Earth’s ecosystem—soil trees and water—are mismanaged. The Government may pump up the profit of having a short-term economic gain but it is being blind to the fact that participating in the world economy brings with it significant costs to those environmental factors identified in the book. 
We can think of the Maui’s dolphins and of how they will fare—or not—from the ironsand prospecting off the North Island and the gold prospecting off the South Island. Exploiting the seabed for ironsand remote surveying sampling and analysis can have and has had a disastrous impact on the endangered Maui’s dolphin other marine animals and marine ecosystems. Yet Crown Minerals continues to grant permits to mining corporations to prospect and potentially mine the seabed off the West Coast of Aotearoa. These small coastal communities are now gearing up to fight yet again as they oppose the third application in 2 years to gain prospecting licences from Crown Minerals. 
Rather than protect the public interest the Foreshore and Seabed Act has instead empowered the Government to flog off the seabed for economic gain weakening the ability of any New Zealander to protect the marine environment. As for section 4 of the Crown Minerals Act wherein the Government is obliged to consult with mana whenua: well as with Landcorp’s decisions to sell up the Whenuakite and Rangiputa Stations or with the Ministry of Education’s decision to sell off schools that were theoretically land banked so too is Crown Minerals content just to relax and let the land go—overseas that is. Kia ora.