Baldock Larry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Baldock Larry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16998] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I begin my comments by thanking the honourable member Dail Jones who in his speech some time ago gave us an explanation of why the new clause 2A had appeared in the Supplementary Order Paper 302 proposed by the Deputy Prime Minister. He took ownership of the fact that it was New Zealand First members who went to the officials and discussed broadening the definition of Crown ownership to be what we now read there which is a pretty good description of what was conveyed by the term “public domain”. I thank the member for that and I thank New Zealand First and the Rt Hon Winston Peters for doing so. 
But it does the beg the question of the Rt Hon Winston Peters as to who is copying whom which he raised earlier. It seems very clear that the concept of public domain has been copied by New Zealand First. While United Future is happy that that is occurring because it is a useful concept we believe that there should be some recognition of it. It is not only the concept that is being copied but also the behaviour. I do not know whether anyone has noticed in the House but New Zealand First is becoming very reasonable very constructive and very cooperative with the Government. I think Winston Peters must be becoming very worried because he is morphing into United Future. Progressively week by week and month by month New Zealand First is morphing into United Future and that must be of concern to Winston Peters. He has sat here for 2 years and watched the way that we have operated constructively with the Government and I am sure that on many occasions he has thought: “Gee I wish we had done that in 1996 when we were in a relationship with the National Party. We would not have got into so much trouble.” But many people are still holding their breath as to how long that attitude will last. Time will tell whether New Zealand First can truly morph into a party that is able to work constructively on behalf of all New Zealanders. 
I want to make some comments about clause 3 the purpose clause because it is of course a crucial part of the bill. It gives effect to the object stated in clause 2A which has been discussed quite a bit already then goes on to establish the purpose of this legislation. It is important that we debate this matter in the Committee today and possibly into tomorrow but I believe that it is even more important that after the debate has occurred here it goes out into the community. I want to put forward a suggestion to the Minister and the Government this morning which I hope they will take up and that is that they take steps to ensure that communication is carried out from this Chamber. Not everybody tunes into the radio and listens to the debate—for obvious reasons if anybody listens to it for any length of time! But it is important that this bill in its new form with this huge Supplementary Order Paper be communicated through hui throughout the country and to Pakeha New Zealanders so that everyone is brought up to speed. It is not enough to rely upon what is reported in the newspapers and in 60-second or 30-second sound bites on television and radio to convey information about this important legislation which is now being improved in many ways by the Minister’s proposed amendments. 
So I offer that suggestion to the Government. It is important that it find some independent people who are not affiliated with any particular political party and who can go around the country and give a good explanation of what this legislation now means. A number of Government members who have spoken in the debate have said that there was a long consultation process and have asked why everyone is complaining about the House taking urgency this week. It seems that they have completely missed the point. The fact that they went around the country talking to people does not necessarily mean that they were heard. It does not necessarily mean that they conveyed anything through all the hui that they held. The fact that 4000 submitters came to the select committee is fairly clear evidence that those members were not heard as well as the Government thought they were. 
It somewhat reminds me of the trouble that parents sometimes get into with their teenagers when they tell them everything then wonder why the teenagers go off and do the complete opposite. They scratch their heads and say: “Well we told them. Weren’t they listening?”. No they were not listening; often teenagers do not listen to parents because parents are not listening to teenagers. The Government needs to understand that it was not enough to go around the country and simply tell everybody what its policy was going to be and how it was going to solve this problem. It also needed to be listening. That is why we attempted to have the select committee produce an interim report; we wanted more opportunity for some dialogue which may have resulted—we hope it still will if it is initiated by the Government—in the bringing together of people in New Zealand over this legislation.