Carter David: Aquaculture Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Carter David: Aquaculture Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17756. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 As we move to Part 6 I want to pick up on the comments made by my Primary Production Committee colleagues Gerry Eckhoff and Phil Heatley. In Part 5 we have created a huge dispute and grievance between Maori New Zealanders and non-Maori New Zealanders. Now we move to Part 6 which is a significant part of the bill. It is totally devoted to trying to find solutions to grievances between Maori. We have talked throughout the debate about Maori getting up to 40 percent of new aquaculture space but nobody has taken much interest in defining who is Maori and how that space will be actually allocated. I note that no Maori member of the Labour caucus has even bothered to take a call on any part of the legislation let alone helped the Committee with this very important part. 
I confess right at the outset that I do not have a huge appreciation of Maori politics. I would have thought it was incumbent on some of those Maori members to help the Committee through this debate. They should tell us how the various iwi or hapu will be recognised so as to receive their entitlement. My colleague Linda Clark—no Linda Clark was never a colleague of mine but I accept that she was a colleague of the other side! My colleague Lynda Scott has just mentioned that eight iwi claim to have an affiliation to the Marlborough Sounds which is the area that has been at the forefront of leading aquaculture development in this country. I pay tribute to the Marlborough District Council for the job it has done. This legislation will give Maori in the Marlborough Sounds up to 40 percent of new space to be created. We have acknowledged that that will be complex enough to build into this legislation a dispute resolution process for how the aquaculture space will be divvied up within iwi. 
There are no boundaries for this. There is no map of the Marlborough Sounds that states that a particular iwi has an affiliation with a particular bay and that another iwi has an affiliation with another bay. If Maori use their brains—and I am sure they will—they will look at the Marlborough Sounds and ask where the most productive areas are. They will then go into a lengthy process of trying to prove to the Maori Land Court that they have an affiliation to that area—not because it is where they used to fish but because that is where the most productive space is. The Maori Land Court cannot handle claims at the moment. We will have to resource it. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: More money. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: More money from the taxpayers of New Zealand will resource yet another court to try to sort out claims between various Maori because the Labour Government is passing legislation that is unprincipled and simply will not work. I want the Minister to rise to his feet and tell us how much additional workload he sees as being put on the Maori Land Court. Let us have a statement from the Minister in charge the Hon David Benson-Pope to prove that he has given some thought to that question. I bet it has not even crossed his mind. He will not be the Minister of Fisheries after the reshuffle of the next few days. Helen Clark knows that the industry is totally disappointed in that man. He has been a disaster. He does not even understand the basics of this bill let alone the complication associated with Part 6. 
Darren Hughes 
: Is this the man who got demoted off the front bench? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I assure members that Darren Hughes the soon to be former member for Otaki does not have a clue about this legislation. I know that Nathan Guy the National Party candidate who is door-knocking in Otaki at the moment knows more about this legislation because I have spoken to him. He knows more about this than Darren Hughes would. 
Darren Hughes 
: Why was this man dumped from the front bench? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I say to Mr Hughes that at least I got there. That is further than that member will ever get sitting in the second row before he is dispatched back to get another job. That is what will happen to that member. 
I want to debate the issues.