Peters Winston: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:18997. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The people of this country have had the pleasure of hearing the National Party’s spokesperson on fishing. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is a very good question so for the public’s information I will say his name is Mr Heatley from Whangarei. I recall at the fishing meeting we had at Onerahi in Whangarei some years ago he told people there that he was going to be the next Minister of Fisheries. I think they are probably still laughing but the fact is that he has come out today and pretended he is on the side of Maori. That would be the world’s best kept secret because hitherto until National members have most recently aligned with the Maori Party they have been anything but. On this bill we have had Mr Heatley speaking; and of course the chairman of the committee that looked at these four bills and this one in particular is one David Carter. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: David Carter is a front-bench MP for the National Party but he is known— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I thought he left at the last election. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I thought he left at the last election because there has been no evidence he has been here since then. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: He carved his name on the desk. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He has carved his name on the desk that is true but that would take a bit of work of course and doing any work on things to advance the economic and social interests of the people of this country is not what the National Party has done lately. No National has been engaged not in terms of aquaculture and the hopes and dreams and aspirations of people on the coastline of this country and investors and shareholders in what should be a burgeoning economic aquaculture future but has been obsessed with character assassination day in day out until of course its lead man Mr Key was caught out again. I am speaking because I am from the tribe called Ngati Wai and that means people of the sea.  
Hon Member 
: A great tribe. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is a great tribe and we have a serious interest in unlocking the aquacultural potential of this country in the interests not just of the Maori people but also of the region up north and of the nation so that people can make a full economic contribution hopefully as exporters to add to this country’s wealth. Every time Maori sell a product offshore they bring home money for the family New Zealand and that is the economic inspiration and vision that the party I am proud to be part of New Zealand First has always believed in. The areas designated in this legislation can be employed for only aquacultural purposes. I just want to put one thing on record here because I heard a Maori Party spokesperson say— 
Phil Heatley 
: Apparently you are Italian. Does that go on the record? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I tell members why he said that. When I was young I did not sit on my backside sunning myself at Christmas time lying around surfing and leading the rich man’s life that Mr Heatley used to lead. No I used to work on the then new Panmure bridge for an Italian company called Codelfa-Cogefar. 
Hon Member 
: What’s this got to do with aquaculture? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He raised it. They do not like it. They put up something smart and when they get the retort they do not like it. But just to finish off I used to be the union delegate on the bridge working every day in the rigging getting things ready doing something productive for New Zealand and getting paid. I was a poor humble student unlike Mr Heatley and Mr Carter who inherited all his wealth and he is not prepared to share it with anyone at all. He watches every cent. He criticises me for the magnificent causes I have run in my life—and they have cost a fortune—and he has not been prepared to spend a cent himself but has criticised and passed judgment on a member of Parliament who is engaged in worthy causes including suing him for saying defamatory things. Guess what Mr Carter said when he got to court? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I will get there very quickly. The case was about fishing. He told the court through his lawyer that nothing he said ever meant to impugn the honour and integrity of Winston Peters. That was his defence. There is a word for that that starts with “h”. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh yeah! He is a big man in Parliament he is a big man out there but he gets to court with all his millions and he is dead scared. 
Hon David Carter 
: I’m never scared. You lost. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member has not won yet. 
Hon David Carter 
: I have. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member and Bill Ralston and Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand? No no. Tell the truth. Last December the judge said that there was a prima facie case to face here. In other words when Mr Ralston goes on TV spewing his bile it is because he is the one I sued and he is losing. He does not look too flash now. Mr Carter is a mere bagatelle so I thought I would let him go. Listen to him! Let me tell members something. He is not so happy about that because he thinks he might have won but when one is down the tubes $180000 to one’s law firm as he is do members think he has won? I do not. If I were the member I would keep my mouth shut. I would not try to criticise Winston Peters and try to defame him. I say to the member to get up and tell the House now— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can we get back to the debate. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I would love to. Let me say that the Government is through this bill enabling Maori—because of the Waitangi settlement—to have 20 percent of this future resource. Why is that apposite now? Well the Maori Party actually said that New Zealand First does not support the Treaty of Waitangi. That of course is not true. What we do not support is the phrase the “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” that not one Maori member can tell me they can describe not one historian can tell me what it is nobody at law school can tell me what it is and nobody in this House can tell me what it is but they would love to have it in the law. When one asks what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are one is told that it is a sort of catch-all phrase.  
Pita Paraone 
: A feel-good phrase. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: A feel-good phrase. It means whatever one wants to say it means. There is one party in this country that does understand Maori and once when we were better understood by Maori we won all the Maori seats which the Maori Party never will. One way to get offside Maoridom is to say one thing on the marae one thing over Maori radio and then do something privately that is different. That is what happened here. To put the record straight I came down to the House because it was chance to say to Maoridom—and I know that they are listening in their tens of thousands now that they know this debate has started—that what they are hearing over the airwaves from the Maori Party is not the truth.  
Hone Harawira 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I see I have struck a nerve. 
Hone Harawira 
: I ask you Mr Assistant Speaker to ask the member to come back to the bill. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is what is in the bill. The 20 percent is the Waitangi settlement that the Government has agreed to as to their fair proportion. That after all is the deal that was struck with Maoridom. The chairman of the select committee that sat on this bill Mr Carter can call it a load of rubbish. That is his speciality—a load of rubbish. But he obviously did not do anything when he was on the Primary Production Committee. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: He was sent here to be kept out of the family business wasn’t he? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I cannot be certain of that but if it has any truth to it I can understand why. If there ever was a cowboy in this place it is David Carter from the South Island. In fact Federated Farmers said: “Who on earth appointed him to that role?”. They want to know what they did to deserve him as the National Party spokesman on agriculture. 
Hon Member 
: Invisible man. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: They called him the invisible man but unfortunately not the silent one. He is still interjecting in this House.  
The New Zealand First Party is pleased to support this legislation and to put a few things on the record that are factual—which are to do with the truth—rather than have ourselves so vilely unfairly demonstrably misrepresented.