Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17027] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Can I start again? That is the fourth interruption. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I just heard an interjection made by Mr Paul Swain in which he referred to the deputy leader of the National Party by using a totally unparliamentary phrase. I ask that he be asked to withdraw it. [ 
Interruption 
] Whoever it was directed at it was totally unparliamentary. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member will stand withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Can I start again? 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. This is with no reference to the member who wants to speak. Two things have happened at once. One was the use of unparliamentary language by Mr Swain and I presume your request for a withdrawal and an apology was for that. The other thing that occurred was that Mr Swain continued to talk while you were on your feet and dealing with the point of order. That is the matter that the Speaker has just backed up your previous ruling on and I suggest that you deal with that situation as well. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has withdrawn and apologised. I would say to all members that during the time that I am speaking there must be silence. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Can I start again? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Yes. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted never has the National Party been such a mindless— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. This is a procedural matter. When you said the member could start again does that mean he can start his content from the beginning or does the clock start again? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: It is at the Chairperson’s discretion to rule on that. I have ruled that the member will start again. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: After six interruptions I want to say that the National Party is a mindless leaderless rabble—and that demonstrates it. A famous American jurist said that it was an offence to cry fire in the theatre when there was no fire. Today and yesterday the National Party has been making all sorts of allegations and not one of them is remotely correct. Nick Smith of all people puts up a gate that is apparently underwater and it stops people from gaining access to the water. That is really appalling.  
I say to the Greens that for the first 6 years they were here in Parliament they had no Maori member. That is how much they thought of the Maori people and what occurs to me is that they still have not got one. Up got that member and she said that she wants to add an entrenchment clause to clause 12 “Public foreshore and seabed not to be alienated”—the non-alienation clause. That is illusory. It is a mirage and it is hallucinatory. It is ersatz law. It is Clayton’s legislation. It is placebo politics—that is what it is. It is the kind of thing that one has when one does not have anything. The Green member wants to have an entrenchment clause so she proposed an entrenchment clause to make it two-thirds or three-quarters of Parliament. Everybody will feel very safe will they not? All of Maoridom and all of New Zealand will feel very safe. She said that the area would not be able to be alienated if there was an entrenchment clause—except that any fool knows that one first of all attacks the entrenchment clause with a bare majority of Parliament which is 50 percent plus one. Out it goes and there goes one’s protection—it is all over in the space of an hour. That is the kind of assurance that she gives to Maori—those who are on the dope of course; the ones who are not working. But the Maori who think and work and who have slaved in this country for a long time will not be fooled by that. It is of no comfort to them whatsoever to argue for an entrenchment clause and I am ashamed to think that a lawyer would put it up as a proposal. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Didn’t go to Otago. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No I think she was at Waikato University. I could not help but comment when I saw the protest during the speech of the Hon Margaret Wilson that another European was flying a flag up there in protest in support of Maori. It is a sort of modern style of the white man’s burden in 2004. The sign that the protestor had stated: “Another colonial land grab.” So sea is now land and land is sea—members should try sailing on that! This country needs to be given better than that. It does not need to have stupid people out there misleading Maoridom or for that matter the rest of the country. The National Party is on one side scaremongering and making all sorts of allegations not one of which is true and on the other side are Maori radicals who are making extremist plans not one of which is true either. So where were they at lunchtime? I wanted those two groups of people—the Green Party and the Maori Party and the National Party—to get together because they cannot go on arguing around New Zealand. On the one hand National argues that Maori have everything and on the other hand the Maori Party says that they have nothing. We are bigger than that surely. Surely when we were at the battle of Monte Cassino not one veteran would have ever thought that we were dying for exclusive rights in our own country. That is the reality.  
I am sick and tired of Maori who have a record of selling land in their background coming along to those of us who do not and preaching to us about keeping our whenua and our rights to our property. It is an outrage that those people get away with it because there are journalists who know no better. It can only be out of ignorance that those people get so much coverage—because journalists do not understand their background. Well we are not taking it—not from them. New Zealand First is a party that produced six of 13 members of Parliament not because they are Maori or anything else but because we believe in one law for everyone. We believe in fair representation. We do not just talk about it; we do it—unlike the Green Party which could not find a Maori for 6 years and then found that member. I mean that is the point. Does she stand up for Maori? No. The most grievous thing that is upsetting the Maori people today is drugs and what does the Green Party have to say about drugs? Well the Greens are for them. They are for the legalisation of drugs.