McClay Todd: Urgent Debates — State-owned Energy Companies Sales—Delay of Mighty River Power Sale 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Urgent Debates — State-owned Energy Companies Sales—Delay of Mighty River Power Sale 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5065. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I want to commend the last speaker in this debate Te Ururoa Flavell for being reasonable and grounded and for coming here to offer something to the House that we have seen from only this side of the House so far. There was no rhetoric there was no screaming and yelling and there was no pontificating for members of the public. Mr Flavell is a member who takes this issue seriously and represents his constituency in this extremely well. 
The issue is about the mixed-ownership model and what is right and fair. It is about keeping debt levels down getting the Government’s books back to surplus in a reasonable time being careful about spending Government funds and the money we are entrusted with by the taxpayer focusing on growth and investment in New Zealand boosting productivity and investing in the New Zealand economy—all things that members of the Opposition hate hearing from this side of the House. But when I am out and about in the country and in my electorate those are things that New Zealanders are focused on and that are important to them. 
In this we have made an announcement. The Government and the Prime Minister have been extremely clear. The Government’s position on water rights has been consistent all the way through. In common law nobody owns water. Actually I go on to say that in common law nobody owns the wind and nobody owns the sunshine either. But as far as this debate is concerned nobody in New Zealand owns water. I accept that there will be many groups including iwi who have interests in water. These are currently being addressed and have been addressed through a number of processes including through the Treaty settlement process. Our preferred model is developing control and management of water rights reflecting the relevant interests that iwi have. 
I want to be clear on this. This is not an issue between the Government versus Maori Maori versus the Government or Maori versus Maori. This is an issue that is important for New Zealand and has been going on for some time. I want to recognise that in Maoridom there are a number of views and voices on this issue and it is important as the last speaker said that these are considered and given time. When we were in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and we dealt with this legislation Tuwharetoa came before us. They did raise issues as previous speakers from the Labour Party have said around their concern over water. But subsequently they wrote to the committee before we adopted the legislation and sent it back to this House to say that there had been a process under way with Government they were happy with the process they were committed to continuing with that and they believed it would offer them the redress that they sought. 
For the record this Government has an outstanding position when it comes to settling previous grievances under the Treaty. In fact the Minister Mr Finlayson has put a great amount of effort into this. It has been achieved issue by issue iwi by iwi and settlement by settlement. This is very much an approach that has been under way for some time when it comes to water and an approach that will continue when it comes to settlements around water—iwi by iwi not ownership but around interests. 
I want to ask members of the House to cast their minds back a year or two ago to my electorate and the edge of the electorate of the hard-working MP for Taupo Louise Upston and Mr Flavell in the Waiariki electorate. We came together with a great diverse range of people throughout New Zealand from local iwi and a settlement was made—it was signed in agreement with the Crown—over the Waikato River; many would say the mighty Waikato River. This is the largest river in New Zealand and from the edge of Lake Taupo flowing down to at least Hamilton issues around that river have been settled. There is agreement between local iwi and the Crown over management of this and the way forward. It was not about ownership; it was about the way forward. 
I just wanted to say that in our approach to this as a Government it has very much been about embarking on an important process with Maori to recognise some of their claims. We have implemented a Fresh Start for Fresh Water programme and established a Land and Water Forum a collection of over 60 parties including iwi to work through this process. So we have a record of recognising grievances looking where different groups in society have a claim where they have an interest and finding the very best way forward to deal with this on a group by group iwi by iwi basis. That is very much what we have said we will continue to do through this process.  
The final point I want to make is to ask what the Labour Party’s position is on the Maori Council’s claims. What does Labour really do to support it? We have Mr Shearer on record saying that he supports the Prime Minister’s position all of a sudden. He said that nobody owns water. But what we heard in conclusion was Mr Finlayson say that there was a settlement with iwi over Taniwha Springs. Taniwha Springs was a settlement over water something the Opposition is saying is impossible. We know Mr Shearer believes in that settlement. We heard on TV last night that he believes in taniwha so he believes in the settlement of Taniwha Springs. But the Government is being responsible. We are taking the issues into account. We will continue on this process for the good of New Zealanders. Thank you.