Horomia Parekura: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — First Reading 
Horomia Parekura: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14004] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 The Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill is the foreshore and seabed legislation part two. I have listened to the previous three speakers and they have covered most of the relevant issues. I thank those people who were involved in the first part of this legislation when the Foreshore and Seabed Bill came back and who had to withstand the quite understandable tirade of our Maori people. I thank Minister Turia and John Tamihere for being part of that decision at that time. That everybody seems to want to move on is quite rightly and respectfully where we need to get but some questions need to be asked. Even the Prime Minister said that most people will not notice any difference from the first effort. The Prime Minister also said that he believed this legislation was the lasting solution and would not be revisited. Certainly there is tinkering and hankering around it but it is not too much different from what was already there. We need to ensure that that is not imbued with too much exaggeration. 
The Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said it was in the public interest that this bill be durable and he hoped that would be the case. He has just repeated that statement and I respect that. But there are issues that have been brought to the fore. Te Ururoa Flavell has a different view of this legislation. He admits that this legislation will not be durable. He admits that it is not a lasting solution and that the Maori Party will revisit it as we go along. I ask the Maori Party whether they want this issue settled or whether this relitigation of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is its only source of political oxygen. There are questions that need to be asked in relation to what is being said quite nicely here. At the end of the day we need to ensure that compromise is about setting legislation that is relevant for Maoris now. I understand why Hone Harawira has jumped up and down and done his parading as he did in the Maori Affairs Committee this morning which his mum supported. That is understandable because it is “Maori-awhi”. At the end of the day though there is some tinkering and some maintenance of the issue of us being dependent on everybody else. 
I will say clearly where I stood and where my colleagues stood in relation to the legislation on the takutai moana. Maoris need a ture for the foreshore and seabed. Maori need legislation on the takutai moana. Without any legislation there people like Gerry who is doing a good job in Christchurch can go along do what they like and ignore the tangata whenua. That is what this is about. As a kid I went with my nanny every fortnight to get kai moana—seafood I kindly translate for the Attorney-General—around the takutai moana. Every fortnight we would go round and collect it. If members can understand a 10-year-old or 12-year-old kid dragging a bag of kina or paua through the water to get it home and then understand the glee of their whanau in accepting it—urban people did not do it too much—then they would understand the connection between Maori and the foreshore and seabed the takutai moana. Where is it now? It has been raped pillaged and plundered by the damn Samoans the Indians the Asians the Maori and the Pakeha—the whole damn lot of them. They have ransacked the foreshore and seabed. There is no more seafood. It has gone. 
Everybody talks about our mana protecting the right of Maori. That will not happen. I do not know who has put it into other people’s heads that our mana is something that can be legislated for. Mana is integral in the whakapapa of an individual and of a collective in the sense of those issues that give us the right to stand here as tangata whenua as this nation’s first people. This is something I hear the Maori Party go on and on about. The process of going through the court is something we have to question. This legislation may restore access to our courts but the question is whether it restores access to justice. If not why not? That is what was promised by the Maori Party. What is a customary title anyway? At the end of the day Maori mana is not something that can be purveyed. But the opportunities that are about moni the new aquaculture industry—all of those things that Maoridom gets left out of—is something for which we need a ture. 
When we leave this great bastion tonight where legislation is written and where we banter with each other across the House we will drive out of here on the left-hand side of the road. The other people coming this way will drive on the right-hand side of the road. Most of that land was flogged off from Maoris in this town here. But there is a ture a legislation that makes us understand where people’s rights are. That is what the Foreshore and Seabed Act was always about. I am glad it gets debated. I am not glad that there is indifference but I am glad that we are trying to be so nice to each other in order to achieve a better place for all New Zealanders. Let us not kid ourselves about what it will do for Maori. That is why we did it and that is why I understand the Maori Party does it but let us be clear on this. 
There are other issues. Treaty specialist Dr Paul Moon stated that the Government’s marine and coastal area bill is “bound to disappoint” those who have campaigned for greater Maori rights to the foreshore and seabed and especially what they were promised by the Maori Party. This is fine as long as we recognise it in this House and Maoris know exactly what the bill will deliver because they are struggling to find it. Like Moana Jackson did Dr Paul Moon also mentions the high threshold set for hapu for proving entitlements to customary title. The hurdles that hapu have to jump in order to prove their right to customary title are prohibitive. We did that in Part 2 of the Act and we need to own that but that we get to a better space is something we have to be a lot stronger and a lot clearer on. I am sick and tired of Maori either being put into grievance mode or at the end of the day staying in grievance mode or giving political oxygen to nincompoops who do not want to create a better life for their people. That is what we tried to do I say to Georgina and she knows it. That is what we tried to do to make sure that that would happen. We tried to make sure there was clear legislation that Maori could use in a whole lot of other matters—not in relation to their mana because nobody can take that away. 
The action is not with the big-time hitters and their hui going on around the country. Every academic in town or at university is getting together trying to hypothesise what is good or not good for Maori. The action is behind the windows and curtains of the houses where our people are struggling to feed their kids at the moment. Seven out of 10 Maoris in Wairoa are unemployed. People in Hastings cannot pay their power bills and they are going without lighting and heating for their kids. That is the issue. When people sign up to a Government that allows $1.75 billion to go to those who have put their assets at risk and gambled with them where the hang are we going? When people do not respond or cross the floor in relation to the 90-day legislation and the bar is raised at universities so that Maori will not get into them I really wonder and have a fear for the future of our people; I certainly do. That is the relevant point. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What happened to the $9 billion surplus? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Mr Henare has asked me to apologise. He does enough of that in meetings without bringing it here. The legislation will do nothing to change that reality and it may have exasperated Maori inequality. There is controversy around this legislation. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: 9 years and you didn’t do anything. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Mr Henare is dead right about the 9 years that Labour was in office. We sat outside there when our whanau came up the road we looked them in the eye and they grew sad with us. That member was Minister of Maori Affairs for a short term. He has a practice that was relevant to the foreshore and seabed legislation; he is a great waka jumper. He had the papers on his table in relation to the Ngati Apa settlement and what was being pushed through to try to exact the position that would give freehold title. What did he do? He did nothing. At least we stepped up to the mark. If we had not put up the things that his Government says it will make better we would not be discussing this. Those issues have drifted off. 
We want to have goodwill in relation to this issue at the select committee I say to the Attorney-General and we certainly want to make sure this bill gets to a better place. But I think we need to clarify and differentiate between some of the huffing and puffing in relation to what Maoris want and what the rest of New Zealand wants. Maoris generally are supportive of what the rest of New Zealand wants. Here is some simple logic: most of the motor camps that are still open around the foreshore and seabed are owned by the Maoris. The rest of them generally sold them off and speculated on them. I have a worry about the rates value of the sections owned by families who have lived at Porangahau for a long long time. That is the issue that should be debated. That is what should be encapsulated in this bill.