Turei Metiria: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17203] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is really unfortunate that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations is prepared to deliberately misinterpret the issues particularly on the question of equitable treatment under the law for private title and customary title. The argument is—and it was upheld by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and by the ministerial review panel that looked at the issue—that there be equitable treatment of Maori forms of title and other forms of title. 
It is not a question of whether there should be confiscation of private title. The question is if we are going to have a principle of public access—I do not know how David Parker managed to completely misunderstand this point—then there is no justification for saying the principle should apply only to some forms of title and not to others. If we want to protect things like public safety for example or the environmental values of particularly sensitive areas or if there is some rational logical reason why public access to particular land should not be provided then one can set out criteria and ways of managing those decisions. But the title of the land should be irrelevant to whether the principle applies. The principle should apply in accordance with the needs of the public and issues pertaining to that particular land which are things like environmental sensibility rahui particular kinds of use and public safety. 
The issue for the Greens and for Maori—on this issue we have consistently spoken for Maori—is equitable treatment under the law and the right for customary title and Maori forms of tikanga title to be treated equitably by legislation. That was not the case with the 2004 law. It is not the case with this Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill because the principles of for example public access apply differently to different forms of title. I wanted to clear that matter up. It does not matter how much other people try to misinterpret that issue; that is the clear principled position on the issue of public access for example. 
I have an amendment to delete clause 9 in Part 1. It is related to clause 8 but that is OK. As I said in an earlier call the issue is about accommodated activities which are activities of Government agencies and Crown entities public works and various kinds of things like that that could occur or are occurring on customary marine title land. The bill has all these definitions of people who can have these kinds of activities and the kinds of activities they can be and if they impact on customary marine title land the Minister effectively has the right to use take or acquire that land or to damage it if the Minister chooses and then to enter into negotiation with the holders of that customary marine title about what compensation might be available. I want to go through the legislation because it is a technical point but it is important. Again it is one of the discriminatory aspects of the bill that show that Maori title is being treated differently from other kinds of title and one of the reasons why the bill is considered to be discriminatory in ethnic terms. 
Clause 8 sets out the kinds of things that can be considered to be part of an accommodated activity. They include renewing an existing resource consent upgrading existing structures the replacement or relocation of existing structures or infrastructure and dredging which is a major issue for Maori in coastal areas. Dredging is one of those activities. That could mean things like using a coastal marine area as a dump for the discharge of sewage. If a council wanted to use a particular area of land as a discharge point for sewage for example in emergency situations then under this legislation there is a capacity for the council to make an application to use someone’s customary marine area as a dump for sewage. 
Clause 8 also describes who might be able to make such an application for a deemed activity an emergency activity an accommodated activity and the list is the Crown any Crown entity a network utility operator within the meaning of the Resource Management Act an electricity generator a port company Maritime New Zealand and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority. So the possible organisations that could seek to use the customary marine land of an iwi or hapu for this purpose are very broad and the powers are very significant. 
Clause 9 talks about a “deemed accommodated activity” which appears to be an extension. One of the activities listed in clause 9 is prospecting exploration mining operations or other forms of mining under the Crown Minerals Act. Of course mining in general is sensitive but marine mining is a particularly sensitive issue for Maori at the moment. There have been numerous claims to the Waitangi Tribunal dealing with the right of Maori to have some say over what happens in their coastal areas their rohe around mining applications. They have been upheld by the Waitangi Tribunal but denied consistently by the Crown. This bill again gives to others to Crown entities or their agents the right to make application to use Maori customary marine areas for the purposes of mining and mineral mining. 
Schedule 1 talks about what happens to an application to undertake that activity in a customary marine area. Clause 8 of Part 1 of schedule 1 states that the Minister must consider the application and any information provided by the customary marine title holders and must decide whether to waive the customary marine title holder’s permission right whether there are any other affected rights and whether to provide compensation—whether to provide compensation. So the Minister makes the ultimate decision. If a company wants to go on to Maori-held customary marine area land and undertake mining activities on that land contrary to the wishes of the holder of the title to that area then the Minister can provide for it and agree to it. Additionally the Minister can decide whether to provide compensation for loss of the use of or damage to that land. So the holders of a customary marine title are completely beholden to the intentions and desires of the Minister as to whether their land is able to be used by them freely whether some other group can use that land for something that it considers to be more important than the wishes of the iwi or hapu who hold that land and whether they are considered important enough to be given any kind of financial compensation for its loss. 
The Green Party again says that if we are to treat land equitably regardless of the title of the land then we must have the same laws apply. For freehold land that law is the Public Works Act which has a system for the provision of compensation. Compensation is not negotiable under the Public Works Act but it is negotiable when it comes to Maori tikanga title. It is negotiable because according to the Government—the Maori Party and National—if Maori hold title in an area of land it is not as important as anybody else’s title. That title can be taken from them for somebody else’s economic use or deliberate destruction for their own purposes and the Government can decide that it is not worth anything and not give Maori compensation. That is what these provisions in this bill do. That is how this bill is discriminatory against Maori and against Maori forms of title. It is grossly inappropriate that the process for the use of land that is in effect supposed to be treated like private land is so different from the process for other kinds of land. It is not appropriate to have such discriminatory racist provisions in this legislation. 
The Green Party is opposed to them and we have put forward our amendment to take them out. I understand that Labour has a similar amendment to remove those clauses. We will be supporting that amendment if it comes up first and we certainly hope Labour will support ours if it comes up first. There is no justification for treating these two different kinds of title differently.