Heatley Phil: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17117] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I too would like to address these amendments to the Resource Management Act. I do so because I am intrigued by the changes—the extreme amendments I have to say—the Government wants to make on behalf of Maori in order to appease them in some way. I do so also because I am on the Primary Production Committee considering the Aquaculture Reform Bill. 
Members will recall that that bill also deals with amendments to the Resource Management Act. The Labour Government has given Maori 20 percent of marine space as some sort of horse-trading action for silence on the foreshore and seabed legislation. It is interesting to me because we see particularly in these amendments to the Resource Management Act as has been pointed out by Richard Prebble of ACT that the only winners in Part 5 are the lawyers the accountants and that industry—that gravy train. That gravy train is pushed on by the Resource Management Act at present. It is also fed by the Treaty of Waitangi industry and is now being given an extra boost through this legislation particularly Part 5.  
We know that the quid pro quo deal—the 20 percent of aquaculture space given to Maori—has not shut them up. They are not satisfied with that deal. They have horse-traded and have come back and said: “No 20 percent isn’t enough and we’re not going to be silent.” They are not happy with this bill Part 5 and these Resource Management Act amendments.  
Clause 100 “Vesting of reclaimed land” for a start deals with an issue that our port companies around the country are having to grapple with. Maori are not satisfied with even that side of it. They will find themselves in court seeking their justice and so will everyone else. Every New Zealander is dissatisfied with this legislation because when it comes to deciding customary rights ownership access and issues to do with the Resource Management Act no one in the courts or outside the courts will get any satisfaction at all.  
I would particularly like to bring to members’ attention the restrictiveness of clause 100 and the clauses following it that deal with the issue of reclaimed land. There has been a lessening of some restrictive provisions that originally related to the reclamation issue. We know that representatives from port after port filed into the select committee and they also put their case forward as a group. They were concerned that they needed a right in perpetuity or at least to have some sort of right of renewal or right of first refusal process to have certainty for the future. They have put in extreme expenditure and effort through years of going through the Resource Management Act process to get original consents to reclaimed land.  
Marsden Point port is a case in point. I was interested to listen to the member Jim Peters who is a shareholder on my behalf and on Dover Samuels’ behalf as Northland MPs because he draws a salary from the regional council. He draws a salary from the taxpayer and from the ratepayer and he is sitting in this Chamber as a shareholder putting forward the case that will undermine his port. That reclamation at Marsden Point will undermine Dover Samuels’ port and it will undermine my port. So there we have it. The member paid by the Northland ratepayer is fighting the Northland ratepayer.