Turei Metiria: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Turei Metiria: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17175] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Perhaps we might like to call this bill the “Anti-democracy Bill” because if there has been one atrocity committed by the Government in the last 6-8 months or even 18 months it is that the democratic process has been fundamentally undermined by everything that it has done to try to justify its enactment of unjust confiscatory legislation. First the Government went through a process of consultation hui. I went to a large number of those hui and I saw Michael Cullen treat those people who attended those hui—those large numbers of Maori who travelled great distances to get there—with absolute disdain. He told them that they were effectively ignorant and that their problem with Government policy was because they just did not understand. That is right. Michael Cullen says that Maori just do not get it because we do not know enough about it. He hides behind these great legal principles in trying to justify this wrongful action—in the face of the continual statements from kuia and kaumatua during the hui process that this was wrong.  
We remembered the previous confiscation. We have seen this all before. We know exactly what this is and we do not want to see it again in the 21st century. But Michael Cullen refused to understand and refused to acknowledge their experience and instead took an arrogant and paternalistic attitude.  
Then of course we had Trevor Mallard at one of the hui in Taranaki—one of the places where the worst atrocities in this country have been committed against Maori—telling them that it is their own fault—like the Minister of Maori Affairs—that Maori sell off their land and they need to be protected from themselves. It is an arrogant assumption that somehow we are still natives we are still savages and undeveloped cannot be responsible for our own assets and own lands and we cannot be responsible for the good of the nation.  
In the face of all of the generosity that Maori have expressed over the last 150 years and the amount of natural heritage that Maori have contributed to this country as a whole in that state of generosity Trevor Mallard stood there and told these people in Taranaki that it was their own fault.  
Then we went into the select committee process which again was an incredible farce. It was amazing that 4000 people can make submissions and 2000 of them wanted to be heard yet this Government along with New Zealand First which trails behind obediently doing exactly as it is told refused to allow the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee the time that it needed to hear those submissions. Two thousand people asked to be heard because they had something to contribute to the democratic process of this nation. They were not even written to. They had no response from the select committee because the Government and New Zealand First members refused to allow them to be written to and thanked for their efforts to contribute to this country’s democratic process. They did not even get a response.  
Of those 2000 submitters 200-odd got heard. At one point we had six iwi from the west coast of the North Island from Taranaki all the way down to Otaki who travelled to Wellington to be heard by the select committee and what did they get? They got 20 minutes between six iwi to hear their very real concerns as coastal people to whom this legislation has a direct effect on their lives. The select committee would not even give them the time to be heard individually. There was 20 minutes between six iwi and on and on it went.