Gudgeon Bill: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Gudgeon Bill: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17014] 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 Tena ano tatou katoa i huihui mai nei i roto i tenei o o tatou whare. Greetings to all of us who are gathered here today. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. Just as a matter of clarification as we head into Part 2 I ask whether it is your intention to have two calls in a row for parties that support the bill or do you intend to follow the convention of having a speaker who opposes the bill following one from a party that supports it. I would be interested in your view on that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is quite correct. I did make a mistake. The speaker should have been from the opposing side. I will certainly make sure that that will happen. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt the New Zealand First member. When the Rt Hon Winston Peters was speaking he was interrupted five times on points of order by the National Party and the ACT party. I would ask that if National members wish to raise a point of order on a matter of procedure they do that either before a speech begins or after a speech ends. It is simply a matter of courtesy and I hope that those members would bear that in mind in future rather than interrupting us all the time. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The point of order was a correct point of order and it was correctly called at the time. It was also my error. 
BILL GUDGEON 
: For the Committee I would like to go back a little in history. It might refresh the minds of some of us who are in the older age bracket and some of those in the younger age bracket might learn something today. To an almost purely Maori audience at Whangara on 25 April 1946 Anzac Day Ngata stated in plain terms his loyal attitude and also Maori indebtedness to the British Crown and Commonwealth of Nations. In a speech considered by many to have been one of the most significantly effective of his career he declared and maintained that although the Maori people had suffered from many injustices inflicted in the past they as an indigenous race were fortunate indeed to have come into the membership of the British Commonwealth. Although insistent upon the recognition of rights as British subjects that were guaranteed to his race by the Treaty of Waitangi he never spurned cooperation with the Pakeha. His life was and had been devoted to the preparation of his people for full responsibility as citizens. British authority was accepted by our forefathers and it has given Maori the rights they would not have been accorded under any other. 
New Zealanders will own the foreshore and seabed. If we are building a road to somewhere let us build it together. The road to nowhere is achieved by divisive tactics choices and policies. New Zealand First has advocated and will continue to advocate policies for one law for all in order to build nationhood rather than no good. Is that really too much to hope for? The question was asked in this Chamber on 10 November 2004 by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.  
The beach will not cannot and never will be sold to foreign interests. Customary rights for New Zealanders will be protected. Policies of irreversible damage over the past two decades have led us to a constitutional crisis as to who owns our foreshores seabed and all their other resources. Those policies were created by former Governments. If we follow along those lines it will support and confirm the ideological thinking of the leader of the National Party Dr Brash that racism exists.  
On 27 March 1995 the  
New Zealand Herald 
 reported Dame Whina Cooper’s concerns about Aotearoa. The view that Dame Whina Cooper had campaigned for all her life was to bring New Zealand together. All this talk of sovereignty and separatism is contrary to her vision for New Zealand.  
The object of this act is to preserve the public foreshore and seabed in perpetuity as the common heritage of all New Zealanders in a way that enables the protection by the Crown of the public foreshore and seabed on behalf of all the people of New Zealand including the protection of whanau hapu and iwi. It amazes me that as soon as the words whanau hapu and iwi are brought out we are accused in this Chamber of being racist. If I said family extended family and the greater extended family would that change the issue? Would that say that we are not racist? 
Port companies will get certainty of tenure. We are confident that with the outcome we have secured that provision will go ahead. I am confused about where the National Party is coming from. One minute they are telling us of divisiveness that exists and now that New Zealand First is promoting the law National is opposing it.