Smith Nick: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Smith Nick: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17132] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to expose some of the real hidden agenda in Part 6. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: You will need an extension of time—there’s so much of it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: There is so much of it as Richard Prebble quite rightly says; there is a huge amount. The first issue I want to draw attention to is the cunning little exercise from Dr Cullen in respect of the Resource Management Act and the issue of ancestral connection orders. The New Zealand First Party quite rightly has sympathised with this side of the House in respect of reform of the Resource Management Act and therefore it was not prepared to be part of the nonsense provisions in the original bill that would have given even more leverage to iwi. So those provisions have been dropped except we are now told they are to be rolled out in a resource management amendment bill to be introduced next month—and no doubt to be supported by the United Future Party. This is the sort of “a-b” game that is going on in this Parliament between New Zealand First the Greens and United Future by which Labour is able to get its wicked way in terms of legislation that will take New Zealand backwards. 
We also had the contribution from Dail Jones and he was quite correct when he said we cannot bind a future Parliament. The Government can quite rightly enter into any treaty settlement it seeks and it must come back and legislate. 
Darren Hughes 
: Is that right or wrong? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: That is quite correct. But then why on earth I ask the member for Otaki do we need these provisions which are an invitation to the Government to go down this road? I will say why. It is because this Government has done a sneaky deal. On the one hand it is able to put hand on heart and say all the foreshore and seabed are going to be vested in the Crown but there are these sneaky little invitation clauses that will— 
Darren Hughes 
: We’re not like that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well Government members are not like that! I guess we have to take their word like we take John Tamihere’s word about his not taking golden handshakes. That is the full integrity that we have from members of the Labour Party! They have a track record of saying one thing and doing the opposite and we see so much of it in this bill. I simply ask Mr Darren Hughes whether he can give me an absolute reassurance that there will be no deals with Tainui in respect of the harbours on the west coast of the North Island. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: We have scarcely begun negotiations yet. 
Darren Hughes 
: What did the High Court judge say about this man? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Darren Hughes simply gets into some completely irrelevant issue and Dr Cullen is even more revealing in his out of order interjection. But he is even more revealing when he says it is all subject to negotiation. Does that give New Zealanders great reassurance that the foreshore and seabed will be vested in the Crown? All we get from Dr Cullen is that it is all open to negotiation. We know indeed the route that we are heading down in that respect because these provisions are the entrée for the transfer to respective iwi of those harbours and significant areas of foreshore and seabed. 
I also want to deal with the issues around the bureaucratic nonsense. My greatest frustration in this debate is the lack of speeches that have been focused on what is a really sensible set of legislation under which New Zealand manages its foreshore and seabed in the interests of all New Zealanders. We have not had anything of that sort from this Government. All we have had is slick political deals that are designed to solve a political problem. In fact what we see in this Part 6—and it really does come into focus in it—is the absolute mess we are creating in the law in respect of the management of the foreshore and seabed. We will have these new foreshore reserves. They were publicly announced on only Tuesday of this week but they will be law by the end of today. Then we are to have under the Resource Management Act a different set of plans. I simply ask why for goodness’ sake we would want to have a foreshore reserve alongside marine reserves alongside taiapure reserves and alongside mataitai reserves as well as having another set of plans under the Resource Management Act that are required by law. What sort of mishmash mess are we creating in terms of sensible management of our foreshore and seabed? This part will create a huge challenge for a future Government to clean up the confused laws we have created for the management of our foreshore.