Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Government Proposals for Seabed and Foreshore 
Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Government Proposals for Seabed and Foreshore 
[Volume:611;Page:8043] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 Of course if the member ever had his constituency office open perhaps he would speak to some people within it but he is busy closing all the constituency offices around his electorate so he can listen to the sound of his own voice as the voice of New Zealand. That is the man who says that the public does not back the Government on those issues and the public is in revolt. There has been only one poll and 58 percent public support. Those three parties over there are sharing 20 percent of the vote and that is even less than the miserable rump of the National Party manages to score in opinion polls these days. 
That member is obsessed with the Prime Minister. It is tough for him that she is attending a police-cum-Maori collection of meetings in Rotorua today fronting up on difficult issues. This issue is about this nation and its destiny. Mr English’s adolescent slogans will not contribute to any solution in those areas. I have no objection to one standard of citizenship but it does not have to be as low as his standard is for us all to participate in. At least if one could get the questions right one might get some of the answers right but that member cannot even get the questions right. 
Like a true Tory he is obsessed with ownership. He has to own something. That is what life is about for a Tory. It is about owning things that other people cannot own. It is not about sharing things. I ask him a question. If it is so important for somebody to own the seabed how does he manage with nobody owning the sea? Nobody owns the sea but we regulate it. But somehow we have discovered that we have to own the seabed to regulate it. Why? There is no legislation—I say for the man who is to appear in court soon—there is no legislation on our books that says the Crown owns the seabed. I want Mr English to find that statute for me. 
Hon Bill English 
: There isn’t one. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: We have managed with a Parliament for nearly 150 years without the Crown owning the seabed. We have legislation that deems it to be vested in the Crown. If the member knows anything about legal language that is not the same thing exactly as saying that we own it. It is not the same thing. It is not necessary. I do not own that member’s car. I would not want to own that member’s car. However as part of the Government I regulate how he can use it. I regulate all sorts of things about it. The Government can regulate the use of the foreshore and the seabed without the necessity for ownership. 
It is a usage that is in people’s interests. Members opposite may not get this point. What average Kiwis want to know is whether they can go to the beach which is not the foreshore and when they get to the bit that is sometimes wet which is the foreshore they can use it. When they swim in the sea they will not be hauled out by somebody saying that they are not allowed to swim in the sea. They are not worried about something called the Crown and whether that is perhaps represented by some rather elderly lady in London or represented by the executive of this country or represented by the Crown in Parliament—which I think the member was trying to refer to when he talked about regulation when he meant the Crown in Parliament itself Parliament as a whole—they are not worried about who owns it. They want to know that they can use it. They probably have not really been worried in the past about who owns it but the issue has been thrown up by the prospect of private title being granted as a consequence of the Court of Appeal decision. 
 This Government says quite bluntly: “There will be no more private ownership of seabed and foreshore.” Simple! Who in this House disagrees with that? Well that was pretty good. We have 100 percent vote in support of that proposition—for a start. Secondly that we should all continue to have the access rights that we have had in the past. Who disagrees with that? Who disagrees that this is an area of public domain for the use of all New Zealanders subject to regulation and control under Parliament? Who disagrees with that? Well there are a few outside who do disagree with that. Some people say there is Maori sovereignty and that Maori own the seabed and foreshore and should have the right to regulate that irrespective of what Parliament says or does. The Crown rejects that proposition. The Government rejects that proposition because the Government holds that Parliament is sovereign not anybody else in New Zealand. That is a principle that needs to be asserted very very clearly indeed. 
The member tells us that he goes to these public meetings which are full of “passion”. He is the only man who goes into a full room and stands alone by himself on every possible occasion. The fact is that when he went to Levin they had to move from the main hall to a side room and then claimed it was full up when they had moved to that small side room. At the end of the speech a local Nat stood up and complained about Mr English’s leadership being all at sea not about the issue of the foreshore. 
The member makes another extraordinary claim. He says that partnership bears no relationship to the reality of New Zealand. Is the member really saying—as someone who has pretensions to be Prime Minister of a sort of odds and sods collection of everything that is not Labour in New Zealand politics which is what he aims to be at some future date—that there is no form of partnership in New Zealand; that New Zealand Governments cannot work in partnership with Maori on certain issues— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s just a con. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If it is a con why did that member in Government legislate for it in the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act of 1992? Why did his Government legislate for it in the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It doesn’t say much about that. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It does indeed. The member had better read that legislation again. There are areas where there is partnership between the Crown and Ngai Tahu in terms of management. That is clearly central to parts of the Ngai Tahu settlement—as it indeed is to other settlement Acts within New Zealand. Now Mr English nods his head in agreement. The problem with Mr English is that he is more intelligent than he pretends to be most of the time. He actually knows that New Zealand Governments do believe that they should practise partnership have done so for a long time and will continue to do so. To state that partnership is not part of the reality of New Zealand is a highly dangerous assertion. 
Then he says that rights and interests should be granted by the Crown. So he says the Crown should own the seabed and foreshore and the Crown should grant those rights and interests. He is saying that it is not for the courts to decide what customary rights are; it is for the Crown to decide what customary rights are. So he has bought one big fight on ownership; he has now bought a second huge fight with Maori on that particular issue. Why? It will not achieve any purpose. It is not necessary for a satisfactory outcome of the issue at all. He is doing it—and he may not like words I cannot use in this House—and he is deliberately being divisive on this issue. He is trying to leverage 20 percent of the vote upwards by appealing to divisive instincts in New Zealanders rather than trying to bring them together. 
Government member 
: Why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Because he is simply not a big enough man—or for that matter a big enough woman—to bring New Zealanders together on these kinds of issues. He is a small man struggling with a big issue. Then he says that Maori need certainty about what they can expect. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: You’re a nasty man. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: When I am called “nasty” by that member it is like being called a “murderer” by Jack the Ripper. The member now says we should limit what customary rights are in advance of any— 
Hon Bill English 
: You said that. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No I did not. I said the customary rights should not lead to the granting of freehold title. That is not the same thing as limiting what those customary rights are. The member again cannot understand some pretty important issues in this. So what is he going to limit? How is he going to define what those customary rights are in advance of particular claims being made by particular iwi particular hapu by the Maori Land Court? He cannot do it. It is impossible to list exclusively what those rights may be. But if the court goes beyond what is reasonable then they will be subject to legal challenge. 
Hon Bill English 
: Tell us how. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Because that is how judicial systems work. One takes one’s case to court and if the court finds that one has proved it it says yes. But if somebody else disagrees he or she can appeal to a higher court—and there are higher courts than the Maori Land Court. There is the Maori Appellate Court for a start. Maori know that. They know that very clearly. They know roughly what sorts of things are going to be included within customary rights but they say absolutely properly that they are particular to particular places particular iwi particular hapu and particular whanau. It is up to them to demonstrate that to the Maori Land Court. 
We further say which is new that the Maori Land Court should be able to declare ancestral connection for particular iwi hapu and whanau in terms of areas of foreshore and seabed. That is important in terms of who has to be talked to. If the Marlborough regional council had talked properly in the first place to the iwi with interest—if it had not had a racist mayor and I will say that bluntly because his comments since this issue came up proved that very clearly; and who was a New Zealand First candidate and who has now been disowned by his own regional council on these issues—it is very doubtful that this issue would have happened this way. If there had been proper talking to at the local authority level in Marlborough it is very doubtful this issue would ever have arisen in the way it has. The lesson there is not to try to exclude people’s rights right from the start but to get into a position where one talks with them about what those rights are. 
I remind Mr English that his position does not have support from the majority of New Zealanders. He has barely more support than the proportion who thought there should be private title over foreshore and seabed—20 to 18. He just beats out that option which no one in this House wants to vote for or should vote for. We are engaged in a process of consultation. We will talk through these issues. The more we are talking the more Maori are coming out saying that within what the Government is saying is a set of sensible ideas. As soon as Dover Samuels was attacked from the extreme—I was wondering at one point whether Titewhai Harawira was going to be the next leader of the National Party—the more key leaders in the far north came out in support of Dover Samuels. There is I believe a silent majority amongst Maori for a sensible solution in this area which brings all New Zealanders together. But do not shove Crown ownership up people’s noses as a means of provoking them. Do not— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why did the Prime Minister say that? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: She did not actually. The member had better read the press conference transcript again. Do not unnecessarily indicate that customary rights are going to be trammelled in advance of consideration by the Maori Land Court. Recognise that these issues are common to all New Zealanders. 
Do in my view reject those who say that only a proportion of this population are true New Zealanders and the rest of us are guests in our own land. I do not accept that as a first-generation New Zealander and I do not believe that any others of us in this House should accept that notion at all. If we talk through these issues properly then I believe we can arrive at sensible solutions and will do so. But it will not be done by putting up large billboards and sticking five-word slogans across them and hoping that somehow or other that is an answer to a historical challenge which that member opposite has failed—yet again.