Peters Jim: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Peters Jim: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17156] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 It would be well to remind us all what New Zealand First stands for in respect of this bill. I want therefore to speak to the short title and to the amendments. Just to reiterate we began with Crown ownership as a guaranteed component. We talked about guaranteed access customary rights for all New Zealanders and one law for all under the legal process. That is where we stood in June and we stand there today.  
We hear some of the imagined posturings around the House and I am very sorry to say that the Green member seems somehow to be grounded in urban grievances of about 50 years ago. That member has no understanding of those of us who have a conflict of interest because we have been coastal dwellers along with many other thousands of Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. We understand exactly what the foreshore is. We understand the seabed and we also understand the legal process implicit in this bill.  
That brings me to the second point. Last night and today by implication there seems to be some ability in this Chamber to go all around in a wide-ranging debate and forget what the amendments and the bill stand for. Let us look at it very very quickly. Part 2 concerns the Resource Management Act and on matters of national importance we have already heard an allusion last night and again today to the relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with the ancestral lands water sites wahi tapu and other taonga. That is the law now and what will be added to that law is the protection of recognised customary activities forming an addition to Part 6 but one that is for all. Therefore Maori and New Zealanders of European and other backgrounds will benefit from that inclusion.  
Secondly in respect of this particular matter there was misunderstanding last night either deliberate or unknown as to where Part 2 stands. All these items are of national importance and all of them are ranked equally. All of them would be valued for themselves in any jurisdiction or any consent hearing. After proper weighting had been given to the value then and then only would the jurisdiction hearing an application at the ground level as it were start to assign due consideration to it. That is one law for all and all are equally matters of national importance.  
Last night I heard comment made that suggested very strongly that this new addition was somehow outstanding and was going to have prior importance. That is just not so and anyone here who understands case law and has been involved in any consent hearing knows exactly what is true.  
The third matter I wish to turn to is that of veto. It was much discussed in the course of the earlier debate. I reiterate that no veto was implicit or expressed in the language of this amendment to the bill—none at all. In actual fact as I said last night any consent hearing or any body must have regard to this suite of guidance these very clear criteria step by step that affect the area—the actual history of it the alternative which are all part of such a discussion—and in the end after all of those carefully delineated steps in the criteria if there is no significant adverse effect then and then only will the consent body make the decision. There is no veto there just a proper and normal legal process.  
The last thing I want to say concerns those bodies that came to the select committee and expressed their concerns quite rightly—and I am talking about the utility groups and the various other concerns of groups such as Transpower and the port companies. Despite the comments made by National Party members last night their certainty and their rights to perform are absolutely guaranteed in these amendments and in this bill. They are there. If members wish to read carefully the constructions placed there they will see just that.  
We should be able to go out of this Chamber at the end of the day and assure all of those groups that normal business is as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow and that up until the point of the commencement of this Act all the rights that had accrued and all the developments that had been properly processed and the procedures adhered to will take place—there is no limitation whatsoever. On behalf of New Zealand First I am pleased to be able to stand and support again this part of the bill.