Delahunty Catherine: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Delahunty Catherine: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17319] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou te Whare. The Green Party has a strong interest in both the detail and the intent of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill in all parts but especially in Part 3. We agree with a number of comments about the right to go to court although having spent a bit of time in some courts as a layperson I have a very unromantic view of a court where the tests are too difficult for people to pass. 
Of all the Green MPs Metiria Turei has lived the issue through the parliamentary process in depth and detail. However if we do not obsess over the detail but actually look at the intent of the bill we realise that all of us in this country have a contribution to make. People out there are emailing me and using Facebook all day saying: “What on earth are these people in Parliament talking about? Can you please make this comprehensible.” People do not understand why the debate has become so esoteric. I will attempt to be slightly less esoteric which should be quite easy for me as a non-lawyer. 
Part 3 is focused on the rights and tests and of particular importance is the definition of “customary marine title”. This does not really sound like a tikanga-based definition but it definitely has a strong marine flavour and many fishhooks. One of the most fundamental issues is the test for a marine customary title. Clause 60(1)(b) requires tangata whenua to show that they have “exclusively used and occupied the specified area from 1840 to the present day without substantial interruption.” It is necessary to ask who benefits from the inclusion of that provision. In my limited experience a limited list of hapu—perhaps Te Tairawhiti—may be able to pass this test but I ask who else and where. And even within that rohe where I was privileged to live for 8 years I can think of numerous examples where mana whenua hapu simply could not pass that test as a result of colonisation. 
I want to cite two examples where the mana whenua hapu who live on the coast cannot have confidence in this test. Would the people of Rongomaiwahine and Opoutama who lost by various means their access to the foreshore to the local authority which then sold it to a camping ground that then sold it to a developer to make a wealthy subdivision right on the foreshore be able to claim unbroken title without substantial interruption? They probably would not. Nevertheless it is they who maintain passionate kaitiakitanga and responsibility for that part of the coast and welcome people to come as manuhiri and have holidays there. But it is they who were marginalised from the decision making continue to be marginalised and may not be able to pass the test. 
Then there is the interesting saga of Te Kuri o Paoa—Young Nicks Head—and the customary relationships of mana whenua to that piece of coast where tangata whenua first saw Young Nick on the bowsprit of the  
Endeavour 
. Ngai Tamanuhiri had uninterrupted access until the land was alienated and became a farm owned by a local family who then put the maunga on the market. The marine area around Te Kuri o Paoa was put at a price that the tangata whenua could not afford to buy back. So Te Kuri o Paoa was bought by an American stockbroker called John Griffin who offered the family a lot more money. The possibility of regaining land title to their sacred maunga and their customary marine coastal rights was lost. If the stockbroker is in the mood or chooses to invite them they may have access to their coastal and marine area. That is not a customary right and that is not an exercise in justice. That ancestral relationship is substantially interrupted and therefore I ask how they will pass the test. The right in both cases to be the decision maker is seriously undermined by clause 60(1)(b). 
It may be however that proving that a protected customary right exists is a lot simpler than that because for example gathering kai moana or launching waka are activities that can be maintained without substantial interruption despite colonisation. So some people in the coastal area can go and gather kai even though they have lost access but they cannot necessarily exercise any decision making over their ancestral whenua or over the foreshore and seabed in their area. 
It is the Green Party’s view that this test has been deliberately set up to create a failure even in places like Te Tai Rawhiti where some believe they will have no problem in proving their situation. The Green Party believes that the tests in the legislation have been chosen by the Government because they meet the Government’s political objective to make the process as difficult as possible for hapu and iwi.