Perry Edwin: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Perry Edwin: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17176] 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 Te tiamana o Ngati Kahungunu iwi nau mai haere mai tena koe tena koe tena koe. 
[ 
To the chairman of the Ngati Kahungunu people welcome welcome and greetings to you 
.]  
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
EDWIN PERRY 
: I know this is a wide-ranging debate and I shall touch on various issues with regard to the legislation. Firstly I shall talk about access. A lot of comments have been made to the effect that Maori will stop people from going to the beach this summer. I want to enlighten everybody by saying that in the Wairarapa that is not the case. It has not been the case. A number of Pakeha have come to my office to tell me that they have been stopped from going to the beach by their own people. Maori have also been stopped from going to the beach. An example of that is at Riversdale where I own a beach house. Our people were virtually conned out of some land there. Quite frankly a reserve was taken from them by using measures such as telling them that the land would be no good to develop. What happened was that the local farmer and the county council at the time colluded and bought the property off our people. Today half-million dollar properties are on that land. I talk about a prime piece of coastal land that is now worth a lot of money. Sure maybe some Maori may stop people from going to the beach this summer. However when Mahara Okeroa visits my moana this summer we will still drive down the beach and enjoy it as every other New Zealander would. I invite members from the National Party the ACT party the Green Party and my whanaunga MetiriaTurei from Papawai to experience the true kaitiakitanga put into this legislation by New Zealand First.  
I shall talk briefly about the customary rights of my hapu NgaiTumapuhiaarangi on the Wairarapa coast. A USA motivational speaker said at one stage: “Your time has come.” I believe that our hapu’s time has come to identify its customary right to the coastline within its boundary lines which is from the Whareama river to the Awhea river on the Wairarapa coast. What will my hapu have to do in order to be able to identify its customary rights or its claim to that piece of coastline? First it will have to put its claim to the Maori Land Court and then to the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Maori Affairs. Once it is validated the hapu will then have the customary right to that piece of coastline. I say to the Maori people that the Marine Reserves Bill sits somewhere gathering dust in the bowels of this building. But with the passing of this legislation our hapu will be able to claim its customary rights to the coastal boundary so now it will be able to quite easily negotiate the placing of marine reserves on a level playing field. Prior to this legislation going through the hapu really had an airy-fairy agreement for that to happen.  
I shall talk quickly about who started this issue. How did it start? Obviously it started in the Marlborough Sounds where there were 19 proposals from an iwi to gain access for mussel farming. In 1991 National included wahi tapu in the Resource Management Act as well—that allowed that to happen. In 1993 National passed the Act that enabled Maori to get fee simple title and ACT wants that to be kept in. Why? Because it wants to sell the foreshore and seabed off. That is no different from what National will do if it gets its hands on them. I tell Mr McCully that one good thing in this agreement is that New Zealand First has made it quite clear that that land will never be sold. I am happy about that.  
Here is a good one for the National Party. Over the last 18 months this bill went through the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee. What did National Party members say? They said that with Crown ownership and customary rights for Maori Maori did not get anything—Maori got nothing. What do they say now? There is a racial slur on this issue now that those members say Maori are getting everything. What is the problem with National? It has to make up its mind what it is doing. I can tell the National Party what a number of its members in the Wairarapa are saying.