Donnelly Brian: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Donnelly Brian: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17178] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I start by paying a special tribute to my colleague Dail Jones because I believe he has done a tremendous job in working on the details of this legislation. When New Zealanders go to the beach this Christmas and sunbathe on the beach they will know that New Zealand First has secured that activity for New Zealanders for the rest of their lives and for the next generation. When New Zealanders collect tuatua from Tokerau Beach they will know that New Zealand First has secured that activity for future generations. When grandparents are down on the beach building sandcastles with their grandchildren they will know that those grandchildren’s grandchildren will be able to carry out that same activity—it will be uninterrupted—because of the stand that New Zealand First has taken with the Government on this issue.  
I want to talk about New Zealand First’s position since the Court of Appeal ruling. When that judgment was made we recognised that it was momentous and would have huge implications for New Zealand and its future. So firstly we made a statement of our position. We said that we believed that the foreshore and seabed should be secured for all New Zealanders in the ownership of the Crown but that customary rights mechanisms should be in place to enable those rights to be applied. I say to the National members that those customary rights derive from common law which is the “one law for all” that was brought into this country in 1840. The National members want to have one law for all but when the results of the application of the principle of one law for all do not suit them they do not want it—they want some other law. Customary rights come from common law rights and we need to ensure that within the mechanism of the law a way is found to recognise them.  
Second after the Court of Appeal ruling we made a deliberate decision to shut up. I defy anybody to find any statement made by a New Zealand First member from that time onwards because we realised that the situation had the potential to inflame the nation—which it did—if people were making statements that were incorrect. There has never been an issue that has been so poorly articulated by the media as this particular issue was. We said nothing because we knew that to say something wrong would inflame the situation. That was unlike a certain other party which made a certain speech that set out deliberately to divide this nation. That speech made at Orewa by the leader of the National Party set out to divide this nation. New Zealand First said no that was not the way we would go. We did our homework. We really did some work on the issue. I have to say that reading the appeal court judgment—and I doubt whether many MPs actually did that—was hard yacker for me. Some of the legal concepts in there were unusual for us and I had to go back to it and back to it asking myself what it was actually stating.  
What that judgment stated was that the law that was left for us for all New Zealanders by National actually meant that Oriental Bay could be sold into foreign ownership.  
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Nonsense! 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: It could be sold into foreign ownership; that is the law as it stands right here today. We could have had to go down and pay in order to go on to our beaches in New Zealand. Certainly something had to be done to fix that up. The first point is that Labour came to us and asked us whether we would help it to fix that situation and we said yes. The other point is that we must ask ourselves who broke it in the first place. National broke it. That is why we have had to come along and fix it. The law that was left behind by National is a law that allows for the alienation of the foreshore and seabed. I ask the Minister in the chair Dr Cullen whether I am right. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That’s right. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: That is what stands at the moment. I cannot understand how National members can go out to the people of New Zealand and say they oppose a bill that will overcome that situation which is intolerable to most if not all New Zealanders.  
There is the point about people like myself not having the same degree of customary right as the indigenous people of New Zealand. I blame that on my ancestors because they came to New Zealand. If they had stayed in Ireland then I would have the same degree of customary right there as Maori people have in New Zealand. But actually I am glad my ancestors forsook some of that customary right back in Ireland and came to New Zealand because I would far rather be a citizen of New Zealand than of Ireland. We can still go and visit Ireland and it is nice to listen to the music. But the fact that has to be recognised is that customary rights come with age.