Eckhoff Gerrard: General Debate 
Eckhoff Gerrard: General Debate 
[Volume:620;Page:15475] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 The previous speaker always sounds to me as though he has been suffering from the wrath of grapes—hung out like George Hawkins or hung-over. That is an absolute certainty. May I paraphrase just briefly a verse from “Alice in Wonderland”. 
“The time has come Walrus”  
The Prime Minister said 
“To speak of many things 
Like your job George.” 
The Prime Minister has said to George Hawkins that he is on his way out—he is history; it is all over. He should hand in his warrant—his licence. It is all over bar the shouting for that Minister. 
I wanted to speak not about George Hawkins but about something that is actually quite serious to every New Zealander: the attack by this socialist Government on the property rights of every New Zealander in this country—and I emphasise the words “every New Zealander”. It does not matter what one’s race colour or creed is; the Government is determined to attack one’s property rights. It is determined to cast aside the conventions in the laws over things like access to private property and indeed even to cast aside the property rights of Maori which it has been attempting—as have previous Governments of course—to settle. Any one of us can go to the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee and witness the debacle and emotion of New Zealanders—not because they are Maori although they do happen to be Maori. I am talking about New Zealanders who front up every time in huge numbers and almost beg the Labour Government for the right to be heard about what they think is important and know is important to them—their property rights. Since 1840 Maori have lost much of their land to successive Governments; I cannot blame any one particular Government for that. At last now there has been some redress for Maori only for them to find that this Labour Government which has been backed in the past by Maori is walking away from its commitments to that concept of property rights. 
Now the Government is attacking the property rights of rural New Zealanders and those who live in peri-urban New Zealand. They will be not immune at all from that attack. Those who live in Mr Clayton Cosgrove’s electorate where a river runs through will be forced to accept public access through their private property once this Government finalises its plans which are due in early December. There will be outrage right throughout the country when everybody understands how significant the abuse will be. Let me just read the Treasury report on the proposal from Minister Jim Sutton and the Government. Treasury states: “We do not agree with the argument that access and ownership are easily separated as indicated. In fact this is not really about either access or ownership per se; it is about property rights.” Treasury goes on to state: “Any proposal regarding the provision of some form of access over private property involves changing rights and as a result has the potential to create winners and losers.” That is exactly what Robert Mugabe is doing and he is doing it with enormous success. I can only assume that Jim Sutton and the Prime Minister are emailing Robert Mugabe on a regular basis and asking him how the process is going. They will want to know how successful he is because they want to do the same thing to their people. They want to steal the property rights of New Zealanders by taking them from the politically weak and giving them to the numerically strong. 
That is exactly the principle behind the change that this Government is trying to drive through to the ordinary New Zealander. The Government has yet to understand the significance and the emotion that that concept will generate right throughout this country. We are seeing it at the select committee meetings where New Zealanders are in tears.