Volume 621 Week 74 - Tuesday 16 November 2004(continued on Thursday 18 November 2004) 
Volume 621 Week 74 - Tuesday 16 November 2004(continued on Thursday 18 November 2004) 
[Volume:621;Page:17127] 
Tuesday 16 November 2004 
( 
continued on Thursday 18 November 2004 
) 
Foreshore and Seabed Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
Part 6Provisions relating to public foreshore and seabed register recognition agreements and other matters (  
continued 
)  
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I shall make a very brief extension to what I was saying last night just to indicate to the Committee that on Supplementary Order Paper 306 my colleague Helen Duncan in particular Metiria Turei and also Dr Wayne Mapp have raised with me the issue in relation to the Bayswater Marina. The Supplementary Order Paper in that respect deals with that particular issue. It is narrowly cast to make sure it does not get a lot of other things into the net that I think the select committee itself was clear should not be brought into the net in that case. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I shall deal with two issues in this part. The first issue I will deal with is in relation to North Shore City. 
It became evident in the select committee some weeks ago that there was an enormous risk that North Shore City would be denied the fruits of the results of the High Court decision. The facts are these. Bayswater Marina was established 10 years ago. At that time access provisions were done by Resource Management Act consents. In recent years there has been an ongoing battle I guess between the city and the marina over a whole range of things. That culminated in litigation over the marginal strip. North Shore City acting on behalf of the residents particularly the Ngataringa Bay Society won a case that yes there shall be a marginal strip 20 metres wide and there was a very very fully argued judgment in the High Court to that effect. That went on appeal to the Court of Appeal. 
Then the Government puts out its Foreshore and Seabed Bill and that decision has stayed. But the legislation would have had the effect of cutting right across the decision of the High Court with no other remedy. The whole case of the Government in relation to this bill is that it is the alternative remedy to the Ngati Apa case. Whether or not people accept that that is the Government’s argument. In the North Shore instance however the bill would simply cut across the decision and there would be no remedy. Effectively the Government was saying that the Bayswater Marina had won by legislative fiat. Public access would not have been as certain because Resource Management Act consents are not the same as marginal strips. 
That seemed to me to be wrong. I dealt with that issue extensively at the select committee and Dail Jones in particular would know that. I have spoken at length to the North Shore City Council and I know that it has made long and urgent representations. So I do want to acknowledge that finally that issue has been recognised—only yesterday I might add—by Supplementary Order Paper 306. Unfortunately of course that would have been completely unnecessary if this matter had been dealt with properly at the outset. Alternatively if this bill had never existed this issue would never have arisen. So in many ways the Supplementary Order Paper is there because of the Government’s own negligence in relation to this matter. At best it is fixing up its own negligence. 
Frankly I am not sure whether I need to give any credit to New Zealand First in relation to this issue. Its members will have their own views. Certainly I know that the mayor of North Shore City acting on behalf of the residents and the deputy mayor and Councillor Darby in particular have gone to enormous efforts with the Government to have what would have been an enormously serious anomaly removed. What will happen now as I understand it is that the cases will proceed and one way or the other one of the two parties will win. The Court of Appeal will decide whether the North Shore City Council or Bayswater Marina will win. That is of course a reasonable outcome. As I say unlike the rest of the bill which is the Government’s alleged response to the NgatiApa case this aspect of it would simply have had a nugatory effect without the Supplementary Order Paper. So I do acknowledge that point. 
The second broader point in Part 6 is of course about Tainui. We all know that and I know that in particular as some people may well imagine. Clause 115A allows those treaty settlements. This is the whole point I say to New Zealand First. It says it has guaranteed Crown ownership on behalf of all New Zealanders. Right at the very time this bill is in the House the Government is negotiating with Tainui and others up and down this country. I predict that it will transfer in the same manner as with the Rotorua lakes to those claimants the fee simple—and I want to be very clear about that—to the West Coast harbours and perhaps other parts of New Zealand. 
The whole idea of Crown ownership being guaranteed is shot through with that exception. We on this side of the House know that that is the deal the Government has struck with its own Maori caucus. That is why those members are coming down here and meekly voting for the legislation. We will be very interested indeed to see what Nanaia Mahuta’s vote on this legislation is. One wonders whether that was how her vote was procured as well. 
This is a very important issue. The trouble is that it is double-dealing. At the very time that the Government says it is guaranteeing Crown ownership it is doing that deal behind closed doors to sell off Government ownership. Its claim will be of course that it is a separate Act of Parliament. We know that it will just trot across to the Green Party the Maori Party and possibly even New Zealand First to get support for that kind of deal. National has drawn a line in the sand. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 It is refreshing that the National Party will support this bill. The National Party will be supporting the Government’s and New Zealand First’s amendment to clause 117 so we will be getting National Party support for this legislation—at least for part of it. It is unfortunate that the National Party did not support the moves to protect reclamations and suchlike. It is unfortunate that the National Party could not support the clause that vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown. What is the difference between supporting the Bayswater Marina situation and opposing the foreshore and seabed belonging to the Crown? The logic fails me entirely. The National Party could have voted for the clauses that did away with the amendment to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the 1991 legislation but no it voted against all those clauses. It is good to see that we are getting the National Party to have some slight degree of sense. 
New Zealand First is delighted with this provision. We were informed on only 16 November by the North Shore City Council that something needed to be done and today 18 November amending legislation is being passed through the House with the initial support of New Zealand First to make sure it happened. Up until now the National Party has voted against every provision of this bill and we are only too delighted to help out the court process which is being allowed to continue in this case. 
Of course the major aspect of this bill for New Zealand First is clause 112. It never occurred to the National Party at any stage that if clause 112 went through in its initial form it would have allowed the Government secretly to enter into any type of agreement with anyone and no one would ever have known what had happened in that decision. There could have been an arrangement between the Government and any person any Maori tribe or whatever whanau hapu or iwi with regard to the foreshore and seabed and no one would have known the outcome of it. Fortunately the New Zealand Law Society’s submission indicated that that issue needed to be resolved and New Zealand First has taken up that suggestion which we would expect the National Party to support. Will the National Party support the New Zealand First amendment or new clause 112 which makes it clear that any agreement entered into between the Government and whanau hapu or tribe must be registered in the High Court? There must be an application and affidavits in support and the High Court is required to check off the requirements of section 28 to make sure that they have been fulfilled so that the matter is open and above board for the protection of shall we say European New Zealanders but also Maori New Zealanders who then can see what other tribes have been doing. 
As far as Dr Wayne Mapp’s comment about clause 115A is concerned the effect of this legislation is that in any treaty settlement there will be two pieces of legislation—one for the treaty settlement and one for any transfer of the foreshore and seabed. Of course nothing at law or in parliamentary practice or in constitutional practice prevents a Government from passing a bill that allows the Government to do anything it likes including transferring ownership of land. [ 
Interruption 
] The previous National Government did that time and time again for Taupo. National members just do not understand the constitutional requirements and the situation in New Zealand. At any time a Government can sell anything. The National Government did that in the 1990s the Labour Government did it in the 1980s and New Zealand First is making sure by means of clause 12 that such issues must come before Parliament for a decision to be made rather than a Nick Smith hocking off and flogging off parts of the country as his National Party did when it was in office in the 1990s. This bill clause 12 in particular makes it clear that any sale of foreshore and seabed land must come before Parliament—as Larry Baldock has indicated as well. In terms of clause 12 Parliament must enact a special separate Act on anything to do with the foreshore and seabed—including any settlement provision. That is an extra requirement of this legislation—two pieces of legislation. There will not be the secret type of deal that the National Party Government used to get up to then rush one set of legislation through the House. 
I thought Dr Wayne Mapp understood this matter. It was told to him time and time again in the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee that a Government— 
Brent Catchpole 
: It’s too difficult for him. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is too difficult for Dr Wayne Mapp to understand. He was informed time and time again that this bill requires two sets of legislation to give effect to a treaty settlement that involves the foreshore and seabed. At law constitutionally a Government can do anything it likes provided that it passes the measure through Parliament. That is the right of a Government. No Act can bind a subsequent Government. That is why one has to vote for New Zealand First—to make sure that what used to happen does not happen in the future. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 We have just seen another expression of why the New Zealand First Party should be thoroughly ashamed of itself. This legislation is being passed through Parliament today only because of the support of that party. I think Michael Cullen is chuckling to himself because he knows he has duped New Zealand First. We heard yesterday in the debate on Part 5 that United Future had been duped. Larry Baldock made the point that he had had an undertaking from the Government that the review of the Resource Management Act would not intrude into Part 2 and he was somewhat aghast when he found that this measure is intruding into a review of Part 2. He felt duped and so he should. The funny thing is that Winston Peters and his merry band have not realised they have been duped. They are complicit in having this bad legislation rammed through Parliament and do not realise what they have agreed to. That has been obvious from all the contributions we have had from the members of that party. 
I acknowledge the efforts of “Captain Wayne Mapp” in the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee. Certainly with regard to the Bayswater Marina he put up a valiant argument on behalf of his constituents. But of course that is just one small example of where due process has been utterly denied by this arrogant legislation. The whole of the legislation is all about riding roughshod over due process. That is one of the worst aspects of it. Indeed it will be the basis of a new round of grievance that we will see within Maoridom triggered from this legislation. From the day it is passed and gets its royal assent be it today or tomorrow there will be a legitimate new grievance in this country because of this Government’s failure to follow due process. That is what we have seen in respect of the Bayswater Marina. With one stroke this bill effectively takes away rights that were won in court—strips them away from the party that was to benefit. 
But when we look at Part 6 we see that it is where all the regulations are. With all legislation we have to appreciate that the devil is in the detail. We are going to have all these new regimes. We will have public foreshore and seabed reserves and of course they will all come with their own little management plans. We will have Department of Conservation officers up and down the country preparing little management plans.  
Hon Richard Prebble 
: They will love it. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: They will. It will be like the Department of Conservation is on steroids. Its staff love these new activities where they can fiddle. It is just unbelievable. Of course the Minister of Conservation is becoming tsar-like in his powers in this country. It is quite extraordinary. He assumes the sorts of absolute powers of the tsar as he takes over more and more of this country. As well as being tsarist the department is also Stalinist with its heavy emphasis on rules regulations and control. It is extraordinarily bad legislation. 
I draw the Committee’s attention to clause 114 where we see some of the detail of the new regulations and rules—another layer that we can expect. What has not been mentioned in this debate to date is the impost that this legislation will be on local government. It is crumbling under the burden of all these additional tasks and the demands for endless consultation. It is under incredible strain. The Government blithely legislates but where is the rubber going to hit the road? It will be at the local government level. It has responsibility for administering the Resource Management Act. We have another layer of these sorts of nebulous spiritual references which local government—with hearings and consultations—will be drawn into and involved with. Communities up and down the country will realise very soon that this legislation is an absolute crock of the proverbial. 
Michael Cullen sits there and smiles and smirks. He is quite self-assured that he has duped United Future and New Zealand First. He will get this legislation through Parliament it seems but that does not make it good legislation. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to address some comments to clause 112 which is the clause that allows for agreements directly between the Minister and claimants—we assume Maori groups—who are seeking a territorial customary right under the court process. 
The bill in the form it was introduced and referred to the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee contained a clause 112 of about five or six lines that provided quite wide scope for Ministers—it did not identify which ones—to “enter into an agreement with a group to recognise that but for the vesting of the full legal and beneficial ownership of the public foreshore and seabed in the Crown by section 11 that group would have held territorial customary rights over a specified area of the public foreshore and seabed.” Understandably this provision caused a great deal of concern because it raised the issue of backroom deals whereby the Government in order to try to calm down many of the objections to this legislation might dish out lollipops to some extent to try to gain back favour amongst particularly the Maori community. 
I think many people have called for Maori to have their day in court over this issue. Although many people in the land do not necessarily believe that Maori should have the right to foreshore and seabed title they have been upset by the cutting across of due process which would have enabled Maori to go to court to check it out. Clause 112 was a complete contradiction to that. Rather than their being given the right to go to court they would have the right to go to the Minister and perhaps seek a backroom deal. It is good to see that there is an amendment that makes it a lot more transparent. I do not think it goes the whole way to answer some of the critics but it makes some improvement. 
But I want to say first of all that although many have called for Maori to have their day in court I believe that what ought to have happened in the very beginning was that the Crown should have had its day in court. When the Court of Appeal made its decision it ought to have been the Crown first of all that went off to the Privy Council to have that decision tested thoroughly at the highest court in the land at that particular time. The ruling of the Court of Appeal that overturned the long-held understanding under the Ninety Mile Beach case would have been tested out thoroughly and then the Government having established that fact clearly in law could have proceeded to introduce legislation if it needed based upon the fact that everyone had had his or her day in court. Really the Crown was the one that should have led that case.  
 Many of us were under the impression or at least I was that the appeal by Port Marlborough to the Privy Council was going to give some satisfaction in that regard until during the select committee I learnt that its basis for appeal to the Privy Council was not as clear as many had understood it to be and that it would test only a small part of the Court of Appeal decision. Had that appeal gone to the Privy Council and a decision been made it still would have left some unanswered questions. Many submitters to the select committee urged the committee to wait until 15 or 16 November when the first hearing was to be held—and it possibly would have been 6 weeks after that before any ruling was given—but then we found even before we got to 15 or 16 November that Port Marlborough had withdrawn its application to the Privy Council. 
So these questions will never be answered. I think one of the concerns about the legislation is that there are some unresolved questions around the country that people will not get satisfaction over and they will therefore make up their own minds and draw their own conclusions about the justice of this issue. I think that is regrettable. This issue is important. We are seeing already as was mentioned in the news this morning that people are taking crazy action over this legislation. United Future is very concerned that because of the process some people may do some very foolish things around this country that cause all of us to suffer as a result. The only way to have really dealt with this issue was to have taken some more time to make sure that everybody—or at least as many people as possible—was on board with the real facts. I think that the case going to the Privy Council would have helped that process. 
However we are faced with this legislation today. We see that the Minister’s amendments that have been put before us make some improvement to clause 112 whereby at least there will be some transparency. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to expose some of the real hidden agenda in Part 6. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: You will need an extension of time—there’s so much of it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: There is so much of it as Richard Prebble quite rightly says; there is a huge amount. The first issue I want to draw attention to is the cunning little exercise from Dr Cullen in respect of the Resource Management Act and the issue of ancestral connection orders. The New Zealand First Party quite rightly has sympathised with this side of the House in respect of reform of the Resource Management Act and therefore it was not prepared to be part of the nonsense provisions in the original bill that would have given even more leverage to iwi. So those provisions have been dropped except we are now told they are to be rolled out in a resource management amendment bill to be introduced next month—and no doubt to be supported by the United Future Party. This is the sort of “a-b” game that is going on in this Parliament between New Zealand First the Greens and United Future by which Labour is able to get its wicked way in terms of legislation that will take New Zealand backwards. 
We also had the contribution from Dail Jones and he was quite correct when he said we cannot bind a future Parliament. The Government can quite rightly enter into any treaty settlement it seeks and it must come back and legislate. 
Darren Hughes 
: Is that right or wrong? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: That is quite correct. But then why on earth I ask the member for Otaki do we need these provisions which are an invitation to the Government to go down this road? I will say why. It is because this Government has done a sneaky deal. On the one hand it is able to put hand on heart and say all the foreshore and seabed are going to be vested in the Crown but there are these sneaky little invitation clauses that will— 
Darren Hughes 
: We’re not like that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well Government members are not like that! I guess we have to take their word like we take John Tamihere’s word about his not taking golden handshakes. That is the full integrity that we have from members of the Labour Party! They have a track record of saying one thing and doing the opposite and we see so much of it in this bill. I simply ask Mr Darren Hughes whether he can give me an absolute reassurance that there will be no deals with Tainui in respect of the harbours on the west coast of the North Island. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: We have scarcely begun negotiations yet. 
Darren Hughes 
: What did the High Court judge say about this man? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Darren Hughes simply gets into some completely irrelevant issue and Dr Cullen is even more revealing in his out of order interjection. But he is even more revealing when he says it is all subject to negotiation. Does that give New Zealanders great reassurance that the foreshore and seabed will be vested in the Crown? All we get from Dr Cullen is that it is all open to negotiation. We know indeed the route that we are heading down in that respect because these provisions are the entrée for the transfer to respective iwi of those harbours and significant areas of foreshore and seabed. 
I also want to deal with the issues around the bureaucratic nonsense. My greatest frustration in this debate is the lack of speeches that have been focused on what is a really sensible set of legislation under which New Zealand manages its foreshore and seabed in the interests of all New Zealanders. We have not had anything of that sort from this Government. All we have had is slick political deals that are designed to solve a political problem. In fact what we see in this Part 6—and it really does come into focus in it—is the absolute mess we are creating in the law in respect of the management of the foreshore and seabed. We will have these new foreshore reserves. They were publicly announced on only Tuesday of this week but they will be law by the end of today. Then we are to have under the Resource Management Act a different set of plans. I simply ask why for goodness’ sake we would want to have a foreshore reserve alongside marine reserves alongside taiapure reserves and alongside mataitai reserves as well as having another set of plans under the Resource Management Act that are required by law. What sort of mishmash mess are we creating in terms of sensible management of our foreshore and seabed? This part will create a huge challenge for a future Government to clean up the confused laws we have created for the management of our foreshore. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I want to take a call on Part 6 and comment on a couple of points—firstly in respect of some issues raised by the member who has just spoken. There has been some concern throughout the whole debate that a foreshore and seabed reserve in itself could prevent a marine reserve or a mataitai but in fact if a management committee within its management plan decided it wanted a marine reserve or a mataitai then under this part of the legislation it could indeed provide for and apply for these.  
I say to the speaker before me that after the whole process of establishing our foreshore and seabed reserves has been gone through a management committee that wanted a marine reserve could itself make an application under the Marine Reserves Act to redesignate its reserve as a marine reserve. I think it could achieve aims that are not too different from those of all New Zealanders in terms of protecting the marine biodiversity of our foreshores and seas. So it is all possible. The point here is that it is a decision that can be made entirely within the foreshore and seabed reservations provided for in this bill. I think it is a bit of game-playing to say it cannot happen because it can. It is all within the possibility of the decision making of the management board and the management plan. We should embrace the kind of ability that restores decision making back to local peoples and their communities—local decisions made by local peoples and their communities. That is important.  
The clause in Part 6 that I want to talk to in particular is clause 115 which will be no surprise to members. It is worth reading. The proposed new heading is “Provision saving Maori reservations”. The clause has some direct relevance to areas along the Manukau Harbour and in particular to Whatapaka Marae. Subclause (1) states: “This section applies if before the commencement of this section any land that is in the public foreshore and seabed has been set apart as Maori reservation—(a) by the Chief Executive of Te Puni Kokiri under section 338 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993: (b) on application of the Minister of Maori Affairs under section 339 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993: (c) upon the express recommendation of the Maori Land Court under section 340. (1A) A Maori reservation referred to in subsection (1) must be treated as if it were a specified freehold interest for so long as it is set apart under section 338 or section 339 or section 340 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993.”  
Within the clarification of that there is a place along the Manukau Harbour—a place called Whatapaka Marae. Prior to the introduction of this bill that marae was able to extend its reservation out into the Manukau Harbour. That happened after quite an extensive tribunal hearing for the Manukau Harbour following the Foreshore and Seabed Endowment Revesting Act. It enabled the marae to extend its reservation in order to look after its flounder and oyster beds. Kaitiaki from the marae ensure—they do not patrol—that the resources there are continually replenishing and that there are enough to feed the marae. All types of fishermen go into the reserve—Maori Pakeha whoever. The point is that when it comes to regulating to ensure that the resources are continually replenishing and that people are respecting the values of the marae a couple of the marae kaitiaki go out and say: “Not today mate.”  and everybody knows why—it is not a good time; there are not enough flounders around just then. It is pretty well respected. If people would like to go out to that marae and have a look at how it actually happens they will see that a lot of cooperation exists amongst all peoples in the area Maori and Pakeha alike and that they are able to manage what is happening in the reserve. The reserve goes into the Manukau Harbour quite well in fact.  
So again I think that clause 115 is a clause that will be embraced certainly in terms of the particular example I have cited. I would like to comment on the origin of that because there has been some lack of historical recollection in the Committee about these types of issues. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The real purpose of this bill is finally revealed in clause 112. This is the clause that accepts there will be cases where this bill confiscates title and rights from Maori. It acknowledges that this bill is a confiscation and then it attempts to provide some redress for that confiscation. Subclause (1) states: “but for the vesting of the full legal and beneficial ownership of the public foreshore and seabed in the Crown … that group … would have had a claim for territorial customary rights over a specified area …”. The redress that it provides is a negotiation process at the discretion of the Crown with no requirement for any outcome no requirement for any redress but there is a negotiation process.  
But worse than that there is no requirement for any public notification of who is being negotiated with so the Crown can simply talk to the largest group in the area conduct a private negotiation with them and reach a conclusion. There are to be no ancestral connection orders to identify which iwi and hapu have an interest in particular areas of coast. We have seen already from the treaty settlement process that there are often smaller hapu who are left out of the process and the agreements are made without their participation or inclusion. These negotiations may go on without involving all possible claimants. People may wake up the next morning to find that an area of the coast in which they believe they have a very strong interest is subject to a territorial customary rights agreement between somebody else and the Crown. It is particularly likely in areas of—[ 
Interruption 
]  
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I was trying to listen to the member and there was a very loud— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why would you want to? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I think it is very offensive for the leader of the New Zealand First Party to come over and stand just behind me and then hold a loud conversation with Mr— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I did not. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Yes the member did. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I can deal with this. It is a longstanding convention in the Chamber—Speaker’s ruling 57/5—and [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Jones that I am on my feet. 
Dail Jones 
: I wanted to apologise. It was me who was doing the talking. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is understood that there is no comment in that part of the Chamber because of the muffling effect it has on the microphones. I notice that the member has desisted and I thank him for that. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: The Green Party amendment to this clause tries to address this situation. It is in the name of Metiria Turei and it requires notification to and consultation with other potentially interested parties that these negotiations are going on so that they may register their interest and I commend the amendment to the Committee.  
The second amendment removes the requirement to go back to the court in order to have these agreements ordered by the court. There is no particular reason to add this requirement. It causes delay and cost after the agreement has been reached when there has already been a negotiated process and there is already requirement elsewhere that a copy of the agreement should be served on other interested parties Ministers and local authorities. There is no particular reason why the applicant should have to go back to the court to get it all ordered there. All of this of course could have been— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why go to court? Why have the costs of going to court?  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: This is an entirely different situation from an applicant going to court under the original situation—to the Maori Land Court. This is after the Crown has taken away that right and reached a negotiated agreement for something else. One does not at that stage apply to the court to settle something that has already been settled. All of that of course could have been avoided had the Greens’ policy of recognising Maori underlying customary ownership been adopted with an amendment to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act that where customary title was found it could not be turned into freehold saleable title and that public access would be negotiated on that title. Every Maori leader whom I have spoken to about this bill was in favour of that outcome and was prepared to accept it.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Name one. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: I can name lots of them. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I want to make some comments on this part. To start with I will make a couple of observations on the comments made by Dail Jones. He raved on about the National Government selling things off in the 1990s but of course he failed to say that quite a lot of New Zealand assets started being sold off in the 1980s when Labour was in power. But having said that I just do not know how any of that is relevant to now because quite frankly at that point there was not a Government saying to the public of New Zealand: “Don’t you worry. You’ve got ownership of the foreshore and seabed through Crown ownership and you have it in perpetuity.” That provision was not around at that earlier time so I do not see the relevance of the member’s remarks.  
I refer now to clause 112. Despite the comments of Larry Baldock and the fact that he felt heartened because there have been some amendments to that clause it is clearly still open to the kind of negotiation that the public of New Zealand have grown weary of—the backroom stuff and deals going on. It is still open to the charge of backroom dealing. Quite frankly I am surprised that Mr Peters supports this. I thought that he did not like this kind of carry-on either where things are done behind closed doors. If that is not the case maybe he will explain it to me but on the face of it that is how it looks to me. Under clause 112 the Attorney-General—whoever that might be; I have to hope it will be someone else—and the Minister of Maori Affairs may enter into an agreement. So all that kind of carry-on goes on behind closed doors. If they come to some agreement that but for the vesting of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown Maori would have had basically a freehold title then that shall be confirmed by the High Court.  
There are two points to be made. The first point which Jeanette Fitzsimons referred to is an acknowledgment of course that Maori would probably have had freehold title issued to them. That also flies in the face of all of those who were going along nicely and thinking wrongly that the Crown already owned the foreshore and seabed. So it is no wonder Maori were up in arms—and still are.  
The other part of this is that this backroom talking having gone on and the Ministers having reached some agreement with a Maori grouping they will then have to go to the High Court. That raises for me the issue that this bill—this framework being set up—is not only complex but also has built into it the capacity for endless court applications to be made. I want to ask whether the courts will be properly resourced to deal with all that additional work. In particular how will the applicants be expected to have their customary rights recognised? Will there be legal aid? Is that another cost that will be piled on top of this legislation? I would like Dr Cullen the Minister in the chair or Dail Jones to tell me how people are to file their applications in the High Court without incurring cost. [ 
Interruption 
] OK. So this is just building up expectations without giving the proper means for people to get their customary rights recognised? 
Dail Jones 
: This is not a National Party gravy train.  
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: OK. It is a New Zealand First gravy train. Right great! It is not a National Party gravy train; it is a New Zealand First gravy train. I turn to clause 115A— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No gravy train! 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: I tell the member that there will be a gravy train. I am sorry but this will create another gravy train—it will. As long as people have to go to the courts there will be a gravy train.  
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Part 6 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill and I would like to reiterate what my colleague Ken Shirley said. This part really is about regulation and of course the devil is in the detail. It warrants very close reading. There is any number of things that I could talk about but I want to draw the Committee’s attention in the first instance to clause 114 “Regulations” which in particular talks about the role in the regulations surrounding wardens. Clause 114 states: “The Governor-General may by Order in Council make regulations for any of the following purposes:”. So there will be no discussion about that and no parliamentary debate. The clause provides for the appointment of wardens it prescribes additional functions of wardens and it prescribes any duties or powers to be exercised by wardens. Clause 114(bd) prescribes “the means (including without limitation identity cards or badges or both) …”. So here there is in legislation regulations that prescribe identity cards and badges for the wardens who will patrol the beaches up and down up and down— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: They’ve got them now. 
HEATHER ROY 
: But I tell the member that they will be very different will they not? Those will be wardens the legislation implies of the Minister and Department of Conservation not of local bodies.  
If we look back to Part 2 we see that it gives us the detail for that. I say to people like Mr Peters who are sitting here and saying that I am wrong that it does not concern just the Minister of Conservation. There will be conversations all over the place. There will be consultation because this Government believes so fervently in listening to people—and then completely ignoring what they think and say. But this is actually a case of “the Minister and the Department of Confiscation”.  
When I put my children in the car this summer and take them to the beach just like the other hundreds of thousands of families in New Zealand who are used to hopping in the car and taking their children to the beach—[ 
Interruption 
] Ms Dyson is laughing away over there but I tell her that my children actually like going to the beach. In fact in the recent 150-year celebrations earlier this year when every MP was given a camera to take photos of constituents and so on I took my children to the beach at Lyall Bay. They had a wonderful afternoon and I am pleased I took a photo of them. It was hanging in the portrait gallery before the poor old gallery had to leave the temporary debating chamber. Mr Cullen might well hold his head in his hands but my children like going to the beach. Hundreds of thousands of families this year will arrive at the beach to find that they can no longer go on to and be on the beach because there will be wardens patrolling up and down with their identity cards and badges and saying that they are sorry but they are going to limit people’s access or worse still prohibit access. They will say: “If you don’t leave we’re going to fine you $5000.” Well New Zealanders do not appreciate that.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Where does it say that? 
HEATHER ROY 
: Has that member not read it? Mr Peters has not even read the bill! He does not know about that $5000 fine. Yet he is happy to subject New Zealanders to those fines and to having their access to beaches limited. He is supporting this bill without even knowing the detail. I suggest to that member that he go away to the lobby sit down and carefully read this bill because it is not too late to withdraw his support. We are not finished. We have the third reading to come and Mr Peters can change his mind so that the provisions New Zealanders currently enjoy the hundreds of thousands—[ 
Interruption 
] That is right. He is thinking of withdrawing. He is signalling to Dr Cullen now that he has changed his mind because he had not read the detail and did not realise what this bill would actually mean for New Zealand families. Well I say to Mr Peters: “Shame on you for making such a very ill-informed decision.” Mr Jones is now having to rush over to Mr Peters to advise him about what to say next and to him also I say: “Shame on you.” Hundreds of thousands of New Zealand families will be affected by this legislation and they will not appreciate it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I have been listening to ACT party members this morning and I have come to the conclusion that they are a miserable sad lot. There they are. They put up one of their junior members who said she would not be able to go to the beach this Christmas. That is an extraordinary claim. Then she started to talk about a group called the Maori wardens whom she clearly understands nothing about—nothing whatsoever. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes she did. They say that the malady of the ignorant is to be ignorant without knowing it. But there they are knowing full well that there has to be somebody who is policing the law. That is the way the law works. [ 
Interruption 
] No no. Some will be Maori and some will not be Maori—OK? Members should just relax.  
 That party’s members are getting up and making extraordinary claims not one of which is true. I will recap— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: They must have learnt a few. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Young Nick Smith is at it again. He cannot keep his mouth shut. He has a penchant for saying the most idiotic things and not being able to handle issues when he is under pressure. 
Stephen Franks 
: Tell us about the $5000. 
Opposition Member 
: Caught out! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no. What was said by the member was that whereas in the past she used to be able to go to the beach this year she will not be able to.  
Mita Ririnui 
: Rubbish! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is worse than rubbish; it is disingenuous nonsense it is deceit it is misleading people and it is designed to get a vote that it will not get. That is why that party is going to the floor. It will not be back in 2005—it will be gone.  
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Will you resign if anyone is denied access this summer? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: How can anybody be denied access to public property?  
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Why don’t you read the bill then? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I have the read the bill. In fact New Zealand First was largely responsible for drafting many parts of it. That is why the country can have enormous confidence that this will be right—because we have been involved in the drafting of the bill.  
A previous speaker said that there will be a gravy train. Quite the converse is true. Georgina te Heuheu must know that we deliberately did not allow for the provision for legal aid in this bill. So how can there be a gravy train? These are not the bad old days of National. These are not the bad old days of the Labour Party—ACT in the old days. There is no gravy train at all. But here is the most amazing thing. Which one of the members from ACT raised any concern about the sale of Westhaven Marina by the former National Minister John Banks? Did we hear a murmur or mutter from National? No. Did we hear a murmur or mutter from the ACT party? No. The Westhaven Marina was being offered to the whole world and neither ACT nor National would say a word about that when their old mate John Banks was about to flog it off to foreigners. The Government had to intervene and buy it in order to keep it in New Zealand ownership. The ACT party did not say a word about Westhaven Marina. The National Party would not say a word at all. It should have because it might have saved John Banks’ skin. He might still be the mayor had he not been so foolish. So when we talk about preserving these assets and resources in the name of New Zealanders parties should have a care for their own record. In the case of the National Party it ain’t got one—it has an appalling record. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What about the member’s policy on Auckland airport? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: New Zealand First’s policy is not to sell our resources to foreigners. When the Auckland airport was sold 82 percent of it was sold to New Zealanders. That is way above the 24.9 percent rule. But Nick Smith sold Paraparaumu Airport to one of his mates. That is what he did. Why does he bring out an example that makes him look stupid? One would not use an example that makes one look stupid unless one’s name is Nick Smith. The Auckland airport went to New Zealanders without debt to New Zealanders. At 82 percent it could be said that it was the only privatisation that ever worked and I was responsible for it.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: In favour of privatisation. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: But I did not sell it to foreigners. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Part 6 “Provisions relating to public foreshore and seabed register recognition agreements and other matters” absolutely depicts the point that Heather Roy was making about the uncertainty this bill creates for all New Zealanders. I was very interested to hear Nanaia Mahuta talk about the sort of decision making that is being given back to local communities and that is no more poignant than in the case of the fate of the west coast harbours Whaingaroa harbour—or Raglan Harbour as many people know it—Aotea Harbour and Kawhia Harbour. What is the fate of those harbours? We just do not know what backroom deals the Labour Government is doing with Tainui. One moment Nanaia Mahuta is leaving for the Maori Party. and the next moment she is back in the fold. There is no doubt that one way or another this Labour Government is conniving to do a deal behind the backs of ordinary New Zealanders.  
Only 2 or 3 years ago I wrote to the then Minister of Fisheries Pete Hodgson asking how we could sensibly organise an arrangement whereby those with interests in Whaingaroa harbour—the local commercial and amateur fisheries local Maori and the local people in that area—could come to an agreement and a sensible plan. He said that all we had to do was write to him and he would organise it. We did that but there has been stalling year after year month after month because as we know the Labour Government is conniving behind closed doors with Tainui to do a special deal. There is absolutely no doubt about that.  
I see Dr Cullen shaking his head. I ask him this: is this bill making things simpler less confusing less complex or less costly than would have been the case had the Court of Appeal ruling been upheld?  
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Now you’re getting on to that. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Too right I am getting on to that because National would have produced a certain simple and elegant bill. Instead Labour has come out with one of the most confusing complex uncertain and costly bills this nation has ever seen. That is really the ultimate test of this legislation before us. It engenders uncertainty cost and complexity in every aspect and every part of it including Part 6 which is before us.  
What happened this morning for instance when the Prime Minister’s electorate office was stoned? I have just had reports back from the Port Waikato electorate office that staff there are concerned because there have been threats against that office and I understand against offices up and down the country. This is the sort of reaction that this legislation—legislation that Dr Cullen and his merry crew from Labour are forcing upon the people of New Zealand—is engendering. There is utter confusion utter uncertainty and utter complexity and we have no idea how high the costs may be.  
After all local government the Resource Management Act and regional councils are all brought into this through this most uncertain and complex planning which we still do not know about in terms of the legislation. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Read the bill. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I have read the bill many times and again I ask what the costs will be—as my colleague Georgina te Heuheu has asked. How will some of the costs in the High Court be paid for? What is the limit? We hear that New Zealand First has said that there will be no legal aid. Thank goodness for that because we know that whatever happens this will be another gravy train. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I will follow on from my comments earlier about how I was heartened by the Minister’s amendments to clause 112. I take the gentle rebuke from the National member Georgina te Heuheu that that might indicate United Future is now satisfied with it but that would not be the case. When something is black and one sees it lightening a little it is possible to be heartened by it. That would explain why throughout the voting in the Committee stage members will find that United Future members have been supporting the Minister’s amendments because they do make improvements to the bill. However we have been voting against the parts because they are not yet perfect. There are still things that we are concerned about within each part.  
We are pleased to see that there is a little more openness with regard to this negotiation process for agreements to recognise territorial customary rights but it is not enough. The Green member Jeannette Fitzsimons has made a good point that we would like to see more openness with regard to whom the Government is negotiating with. I think it would be fair for everybody to know. We do not want to see things going on in backroom deals in this country. We will be looking at what results from clause 113 when we see the list finally published of who has received a deal from the Government. We assume that that will be prior to the election next year. We will see who has been given what in order to take the heat out of this situation. 
Stephen Franks 
: What about 115A? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: Yes I will come to new clause 115A in a moment. I mentioned earlier that at the beginning of this process the Crown really should have had its day in court at the Privy Council so that the decision of the Court of Appeal could have been tested properly. I think though that most New Zealanders could assume that because the Crown did not go there the legal advice was that it would have not have been able to overturn the Court of Appeal decision and we probably would have found that the Privy Council upheld the overturning of the Ninety Mile Beach case. Although we do not have that certainty from having seen that case have its day in court I think that is probably the reality of the situation. That law had been changed therefore something needed to be done about New Zealanders’ rights to public access across our foreshore and seabed.  
With regard to new clause 115A “Status of existing and future agreements between Crown and claimant groups” we have heard lots of claims about what that is. I accept the Minister’s explanation yesterday that it is a very simple clarification and that it does not change anything with regard to what is taking place in treaty negotiations. I think that is what the clause is intended to do. It does raise the issue as to why when National has made so much about this clause it did not support my amendment yesterday to entrench clause 12(2)(b) in order to make it more difficult for a future Parliament to transfer the title of the foreshore and seabed to any other entity. It just does not make sense. National has been going on and on about what could happen and then when it had a chance to do something about it it completely backed down and did not support it.  
I understand the reason for the Government not supporting my amendment. It has made it very clear that it just does not see it as being an issue of constitutional significance. But we never heard that from the National Party. All we heard from it was that nothing should happen that could alienate the foreshore and seabed in the future. New Zealand First’s position is even more confusing. Even this morning Mr Dail Jones came in and said that his party would make sure that alienation could never happen in the future. Yet it did not vote for the entrenching amendment either. It did not even consider the fact that we could have doubly entrenched it so that it was not able to be overturned by a simple majority in the future. That is the kind of doublespeak we get used to on this issue.  
As a result of all that New Zealanders have no assurance that in the future Parliament could not by a simple majority transfer the title of the public foreshore and seabed either to foreign ownership or to a Maori tribal group who claim for that under the treaty clauses. We continue to get doublespeak from New Zealand First and we continue to get a lack of action from the National Party when we could have taken some steps in this debate to achieve something. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I speak in relation to the amendment to clause 117(3) on Supplementary Order Paper 306 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. Although it is not mentioned specifically there it is a clause inserted by the Deputy Prime Minister to deal in particular with the difficulty or the situation that has arisen around the Bayswater Marina on the North Shore. I seek the leave of the Committee to have that subclause voted on separately from the whole Supplementary Order Paper. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is quite entitled to seek leave for that. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is.  
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 111 be agreed to: 
to insert after subclause (1) the following new subclauses: 
(1A)Upon beginning discussions with a view to an agreement under subsection(1) the Ministers must as soon as practicable advise any— 
(a)holders of ancestral connection orders; and 
(b)holders of customary rights orders; and 
(c)holders of territorial customary rights orders; and 
(d)iwi; and 
(e)hapu— 
who may have an interest in the specified area that an agreement is under discussion. 
(1B)Before an agreement is entered into under subsection (1) the Ministers must take into account any issues raised by the interested parties specified in subsection (1A). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 11 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 109 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There is an amendment in the name of the honourable member Larry Baldock to insert new clause 114AA. Briefly the proposal does not specify a majority by which the entrenchment provision must be carried. That provision will be dealt with as an ordinary amendment.  
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Larry Baldock to insert new clause 114AA be agreed to: 
to insert after clause 114 the following new clause: 
114AARestriction on amendment or repeal of certain provisions 
(1)Subject to subsection (3) this section applies to the following provisions (the reserved provisions): 
(a)section 12(2)(a) which provides that no part of the public foreshore or seabed may be alienated except by a special Act of Parliament: 
(b)this section. 
(2)No reserved provision may be repealed or amended unless the proposal for the amendment or repeal— 
(a)is passed by a majority of votes proportional to the number of votes cast for the Ayes at the third reading of the Bill that became this Act; or 
(b)has been carried by a majority of the valid votes cast at a poll of the electors of the General and Maori electoral districts: 
(3)This section does not apply to the repeal of any reserved provision by a consolidating Act in which that provision is re-enacted without amendment and this section is re-enacted without amendment so as to apply to that provision as re-enacted. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 18 
Green Party 9; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 101 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Metiria Turei to the proposed omission of clause 111 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen be agreed to: 
to omit the omission of this clause. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 19 
Green Party 9; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 101 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Metiria Turei to proposed new clause 112 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen be agreed to: 
to omit subclauses (2) and (3). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 11 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 109 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: We now move to clause 113 with an amendment in the name of the honourable member Metiria Turei to subclause (2)(b)(iii) set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. I have just been instructed that that amendment is out of order as it is inconsistent with the previous decision on the amendment. 
The question was put that the amendments in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen set out on Supplementary Order Paper 304 to the amendments to clause 107 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in his name be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments to the amendments be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments to the amendments agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments to Part 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen as amended and the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 306 in his name be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments as amended be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments as amended agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 6 as amended be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 6 as amended agreed to. 
Schedules  
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen to schedule 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 1 as amended be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Schedule 1 as amended agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Deputy Prime Minister’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 to schedule 2 indicates his intention to vote against the schedule standing part. 
Schedule 2 not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of MetiriaTurei to schedule 3 be agreed to: 
to omit the item relating to section 24 of the Conservation Act 1987. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 11 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 109 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of MetiriaTurei to schedule 3 be agreed to: 
to omit the item relating section 4 of Te TureWhenua Maori Act 1993. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 11 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 109 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen to schedule 3 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 3 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Schedule 3 as amended agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 302 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen to schedule 4 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 4 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Schedule 4 as amended agreed to. 
Clauses 1 and 2  
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: There will be one debate on clauses 1 and 2 but each clause will be voted on separately. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 This is the title debate in the Committee stage and I think the interesting point to be made is that at the end of this stage the Leader of the House will move to divide the bill to give it two titles: the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 and the Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Act 2004. 
I cannot help thinking that those two names are somewhat inadequate in the first case and quite misleading in the second case. The Foreshore and Seabed Bill should surely be entitled at this stage the “Foreshore and Seabed Alienation Empowerment Bill” in order to become the Act. Effectively the bill empowers the Government of the day either to hold in perpetuity or to dispose of and the whim of the Minister of Conservation in conjunction with the views of the Minister of Maori Affairs are what will hold sway at any particular point in this country’s future if this bill is passed today. 
The Government has reserved for itself the right to dispose of foreshore and seabed at various times and in various ways and we will talk further about that in the third reading debate. But a title to a bill should indicate very clearly what it does and what it enables. Without question this bill enables alienation of the foreshore and seabed—ownership of which so many New Zealanders believed should be held by the Crown and was held by the Crown post-1840. 
The second title referred to is the Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill 2004. I think this is an extremely cynical title because most people on hearing of an amendment to the Resource Management Act will think the Government has listened to what they are saying and has decided to deal with some of the less helpful aspects of that Act so that many many developments and improvements around this country that lead to employment opportunities and most important to bigger incomes can be delivered for those who take the risks to set up such enterprises and activities. But no this amendment particularly will make development in land adjacent to the coastline of this country more difficult in many many cases. 
Yesterday in the various debates in the Chamber we heard that an acceptance has developed that over 10 percent of this country’s coastline is likely to come under some sort of reservation status for Maori to be administered by a new group appointed by Maori and apparently to look after the customary rights the courts will bestow on Maori. That is an utter nonsense in the first place because if Maori have customary rights they already have them. They do not need courts to start telling them what the constraints on those rights are. The interesting thing is that from the time this bill receives the royal assent the Minister of Maori Affairs and the Minister of Conservation in particular will be the Ministers who tell Maori how when and where they can exercise those customary rights. It seems to me that that is not much of a right at all. 
I go back to the point made about the title to the Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill. Most people are going to believe that this bill is about the Labour Government finally waking up and realising what a huge brake the Resource Management Act has been on our economy and more particularly on the opportunity to raise incomes in this country. Far from that this bill is just more of the very heavily layered bureaucracy that that Act already puts upon New Zealanders who are trying to do things for the betterment of this country. The bill has an inadequate title indeed.  
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I think that speech demonstrated what we have seen throughout this entire debate which is the shallowness and the confusion in the National Party’s arguments. The member Gerry Brownlee should have been here perhaps last night and this morning when some of his colleagues started to argue that we should allow the current court process to proceed to conclusion. Indeed Dr Hutchison came perilously close to justifying the violence that occurred overnight on the basis that the Government provoked it by not allowing that court process to proceed to conclusion. That of course would result in the creation of new private title to the foreshore and seabed. That would occur because customary land status granted under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act could then be translated into freehold title by a relatively simple procedure.  
The irony is that only two parties in this House support that for two opposite reasons: the Maori Party because it believes there would be a lot of customary land status granted and the ACT party because it believes there would be very little customary land status granted. The Green Party did not support allowing the current court process to proceed through to conclusion; it was going to block it off in a number of different ways.  
Metiria 
Turei 
: Oh rubbish! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Well blocking off alienation and blocking off other aspects is to interfere in the current court process. The current court process under NgatiApa would lead to the acquisition of alienable private title over the foreshore and seabed and legislation would be required to overturn and overrule that. If the member has not understood that she has understood nothing about this issue. 
We then have had this repeated nonsense that somehow or other we already know that more than 10 percent of the foreshore and seabed will be in foreshore and seabed reserves. Let me emphasise again that the test for territorial customary rights is a high test as is the common law test. All that this bill does is to codify in statute what the best received expert advice is on what those common law tests should be so that they are placed beyond doubt. It will now be for the court to decide how that is interpreted.  
Ten percent of the foreshore and seabed is owned down to the mean high water spring by Maori under Maori title. It is far from true that that necessarily translates to it having foreshore and seabed reserve status because there are other tests to be met including that of exclusive use and occupation. So the member is wrong on that. That is in the bill it is in the Act and it is clear that the court has to apply that test of exclusive use and occupation. Indeed Mr Grant Powell has complained today that the test is too high. The irony is that if the tests were properly applied those who succeeded in the NgatiApa case would have a very low prospect of qualifying in any case because they have had continuity interrupted since 1840. That is unlike say NgatiPorou Whanau-a-Apanui and people in the north and elsewhere where that continuity has not been interrupted; they are far more likely to be able to meet some of the tests within this bill. 
What the National Party has never managed to explain having said that customary rights should be recognised is how they should be recognised. National members have tried to imply that somehow or other one can have one’s cake and eat it; that somehow or other customary rights can be recognised without our providing for a regime that enables that to be followed through. Of course there is therefore some degree of complexity in that respect. The real purpose of their argument throughout has been to create the image that control over the entire foreshore and seabed is being handed over to Maori and that the current process is just that in drag. That is merely designed to work up Pakeha fears. Indeed we do not yet know whether the axe that went through Helen Clark’s electorate office came from a disgruntled Pakeha worked up by the National Party or from a disgruntled Maori worked up by the Maori Party. We have not yet managed to work out whose fingerprints were on the axe as I understand it and it is pretty hard to tell from fingerprints whether it was a Maori or a Pakeha who threw it in the first place. Let us not jump to conclusions in that particular respect because that party as well has been pretty keen to wind up hatred and violence within society around this particular issue.  
I congratulate New Zealand First and indeed United Future although we could not agree in the end. We have all tried to seek a solution to this situation that recognises the rights of all New Zealanders. This party and this Government are proud to be presenting a bill that does that. At the end of the day people will find that nothing actually changes dramatically compared with where they are at the present time.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I do hope that subsequent speakers will be allowed to speak in as wide ranging a capacity as Dr Cullen just has. I seek the leave of the Committee to have a second turn given that I stuck so closely to the debate on the title. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Of course speakers will be able to range very widely. It is not only a title debate; it is a wide-ranging debate and indeed is a summary of events over the last day or so. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The Government claims in this bill to be protecting the foreshore and seabed on behalf of all New Zealanders. In fact what we have is a device to alienate the foreshore and seabed.  
New Zealand First has failed on two counts. Firstly it does not have one law for all. Secondly it has not stopped the Government from transferring title to the foreshore and seabed to settle claims. The extraordinary thing about it is that the Government is perfectly upfront that that is its intent. It intends to transfer the title just as it transferred Lake Rotorua and the other lakes to Tainui and other claimants. We heard it from the Minister today when he referred to Te Whanau-a-Apanui Ngati Porou Tainui and so forth. That is the Government’s intent and New Zealand First is conniving at it. It does not matter what New Zealand First members say. I am sure Mr Peters will say that they have protected the foreshore and seabed on behalf of all New Zealanders. That is completely false. New Zealand First members have betrayed their own principles by voting for the bill and they will be judged on that fact.  
I draw attention to these points. Why is it that they have failed on the grounds of “one law for all”? They have set up a structure of customary rights that are for Maori only. It does not matter what they say about the Auckland anniversary regatta or anything of that nature. The Minister in the chair Michael Cullen knows because it was stated in the explanatory note of the original bill that only Maori will get them. That is the belief of the Government. Straight away we have divisive law not one law for all. Sure it might be one bill but that bill has separatist law—law for non-Maori law for Maori Maori get customary rights and everyone else fails because of the date chosen. On that point alone New Zealand First has fundamentally failed.  
The second point which is in many ways even more serious is that they are now allowing alienation of the foreshore and seabed in settlements. That is how the Government got the votes of the Maori caucus and quite likely that of Nanaia Mahuta as well. A transfer of that title will now be allowed à la the Rotorua lakes. Members should remember that they have been in Crown ownership for the last 100 years almost on behalf of all New Zealanders. The Government’s intent is to transfer the lakes to Te Arawa and the foreshore and seabed in the West Coast harbours much of the East Cape and eastern Bay of Plenty and much of the far north to the Maori claimants. Those are the facts.  
We know that even when symbolic transfers take place the people assert claims. That has already happened. There are problems around Lake Taupo. That is clear in the evidence on the case involving Lake Rotorua. There will be greater problems around Lake Rotorua. We have learnt those lessons unlike New Zealand First. We intend to have a simple rule which is that the foreshore and seabed will be in Crown ownership on behalf of all New Zealanders with no exceptions whatsoever. That is very clear.  
I turn to a final point. The National Party specifically sought leave to vote for subsection 3 in relation to Bayswater Marina. We sought leave to do that because we wanted to support it. Do members know what the Government did in its arrogance? The Government stopped it. That is typical of the whole process of the last 2 days which included tabling a 67-page document and saying that we should read it over dinner time and then we would know all about it. The media do not get to know. The public do not get to know. The submitters do not get to know. It is typical of the arrogance of the Government.  
It is a sad day when we have to conclude the Committee stage of this day when there are many other members who want calls by referring to the process. The process has been so deeply flawed that Parliament has been denied a proper debate. How can we have a proper debate when immediately before it starts a 67-page document is tabled? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The last speaker has been on his feet with other colleagues because the leader of their party is incapable of sustaining an argument on the issue any more. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Franks that that was my first sentence. The member should show a bit of tolerance. Why is he so sad about it? It is because he is a loser and he is locked into a loser. That is why he is not patient. He will not even hear my first sentence before he starts shouting. 
If those members had any argument then Mr Brash would be here. If they had any substance— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: That is a reference to the non-presence of a member. The member was phrasing it correctly before but— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Is it appropriate for a member to stand up and directly say to another member of Parliament that he is a loser? It should have been picked up because comments like that are directed towards the Chair which is not good but also I do not think it is good to say that other members are losers. Members have been pulled up in this debate—indeed one of them was slung out of the Chamber without any justice whatsoever—for doing far lesser things. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for raising that issue. The member who has the call was getting a little loose. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: How sensitive people have become when they cannot even take that criticism! They rise and seek the Chair’s defence. The National Party has lost all shred— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The Chair must not be brought into this argument. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I rose to defend a much smaller party not the National Party. If Mr Peters wants to point to the National Party and say “Loser” that is OK; he would clearly be looking in the mirror and seeing what has happened to him since 1992. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Again I thank the member. It did not even occur to me that he was seeking the defence of the Chair. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are in danger here and I really would like a considered opinion on this. I never ever thought I would hear the sensitivities of the National Party being expressed in this way. Are we now to say as has often been touted by the Labour Government that there are no winners no losers every one is a participant and should be treated fairly and gently and we should not prick people’s sensitivities? Because debate in this Chamber will be restricted if we go down the National Party line here now. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I would appreciate it if there are no further points of order along those lines because they are not in fact points of order. I was enjoying listening to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: My point is though that the reason why the National Party and ACT party have been so venomous is that what is clearly emerging from this bill and this debate is the fact that there is only one party that has always stood for one law for everybody and that party is New Zealand First. That is why they have been so bitter so twisted and so venomous. Their track record is absolutely contrary to what they say. The idea that they could actually claim this issue as Dr Brash sought to do in Orewa and ever sustain it was never going to happen and it is back now where it belongs—it is back home with New Zealand First where it always was. That has always been the case with our party. We were founded on it unlike that party over here. 
I believe that the reality is that when Judge Hingston made a decision that water and land are the same thing he never ever thought that the Court of Appeal would accept it. He never believed that the Court of Appeal would accept it. The Court of Appeal actually did not accept it. What it said was one can go to the Maori Land Court but one’s chances of winning are virtually nil. So pray tell me how did Maori go from that decision to start believing as some extremists did that they owned the foreshore and the seabed? 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Somebody told them that. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I am telling that member this: the media in this country have a lot to answer for because they helped plant that totally extravagant supposition in Maoridom’s ears and in their mind. And they have sustained it all these months although the Court of Appeal said nothing of the sort. The Court of Appeal could not conceive of any Maori group winning—not just NgatiApa. That is a fact. 
There was Tariana Turia out there on a march saying: “We own the foreshore and the seabed.” Well let me tell members that we never did because 170 miles of it was given to us by international treaty. That is what nationhood is about—not making extravagant claims that we cannot sustain and that frankly are embarrassing. It is embarrassing to a people who believe in independence and self-worth—this hugging mentality that somehow we will have conveyed upon us something that does not belong to us. We do not ever bow down in respect of where we come from to those Maori who think somehow we are being treacherous. I have never heard so much bunkum in all my life. 
But my point to her is this. What is her record when it comes to keeping land? What is her party’s record her management committee’s record about selling Maori land? What is it? Because ours is intact. Dover Samuel’s record is intact. She should not criticise us Maori and say we are less Maori than her. She makes extravagant claims that are totally and utterly unsustainable. If we want to be fair about this we know full well that what is being said by a number of people is utter drivel. 
The sad aspect in particular is this. I heard people talk about wahi tapu yesterday as though that issue was of no moment whatsoever. I could not believe it. Who brought Christianity to this country? Who adopted Christianity? The Maori did. And here they are believing in these traditions and believing that they are important. To have Europeans in this Chamber such as those from the National Party whom I heard say that stomping all over a tradition brought here adopted here and acclimatised here— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s as broad as a bus; it’s this wide. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh there you go you see. Like Ninety Mile Beach is a wahi tapu? That is rubbish. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 I sat here last night in amazement. I totally reiterate and support what my tuakana from Ngati Wai said about the differences amongst us that pervade this land and that this humbug of trying to ensure there is generic understanding and practice in the sense of tikanga is put asunder by people on the other side there who were talking about white people forgetting that there were other people and talking about brown people. This is about all New Zealanders and the conflict in my mind is the extremes of the rednecked racists and the crazies in here who are helped along by the press which is not doing its homework and is chastising us for doing something that is the best thing for Maoridom in a long long time and this bill points that out. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt the member’s speech but he needs to think a little bit carefully about what he is saying. He referred to rednecked racists who are here. I am not a racist and I am certainly not a redneck. I take deep offence at any suggestion that that might be the case. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for raising that. I was just pondering that turn of phrase. Would the member withdraw and apologise. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I apologise. Certainly I am humble enough to withdraw and apologise when I say outrageous things. But I will not stand here and listen to this nonsense of people preaching about tuku-ed whenua things that we have inherited from our ancestors that are tinged through the history of time in this great country by raupatu people setting to on us stealing it and most of all our own people selling it. 
We have these extremes going on and on about let us preserve the land. It is at risk out there at the moment. Let me tell members this: the land that is retained the most is within the regulated framework. It has stood the test of time in the sense of local authority interference at times. Certainly it is about making decisions in contemporary times for our people and that is right. Being from NgatiPorou I support this stance. I am proud of being from there and not ashamed—as I am proud of being from NgaiTahu. My NgaiTahu side were here in the depth of the night in 1992 with the Government then in power and they signed an agreement about fishing in the customary sense. People appear and make believe that this is brand new. Woe betide those who want to keep us in the dungeons of doom and gloom! 
We have to make decisions for all New Zealanders. We have to protect that strip of land that is from the high-water mark to the low-water mark. Let us get it right about confiscation. Let us get it right about the black market that our people are involved with at the moment. They are tahae-ing the kai—stealing it. They are selling it up in Auckland and for what reason? The cupboard is bare and I want to defend it. What is important to me? It is that we make sure that our young people can hold on to that journey that we made as young persons. I sit here and listen to all this prattle at the extremes by those who are saying: “We want to leave you there.” Not too long ago when crayfishing licences were let in this country our old people told us not to touch them because they were about moni and kai is tapu. Pakeha have all the crayfishing licences and they live well off them as a lot have lived well off the fishing quota and doing everything except helping our people. Who has imbued and encouraged the gravy train? Those people in that party and those Maori who have done very very well out of it and have not cared about pulling it down—those people. 
I listen and wonder when all I can hear in the mainstream media and parts of the Maori media is all this nonsense about taking a position and not caring about the demographic of young Maori in this country. I want young Maori to grow up and understand that they can go to the beach and it is there; that when they wake up tomorrow it will still be there. I know right now of properties with the koiwi of our tupuna—the bones of our tupuna—that have been sold because that whenua is alienated. Let us go back to what the court said and let us get it into context and understand what was said. If people want to let that happen kei te pai but they should not come and tell me as a NgatiPorou person and try to invent this generic niceness all around this country—either other iwi or Pakeha. Because I am very sure of what needs to happen in our rohe. I am very sure as the Minister of Maori Affairs of what I believe is the best position at this time. 
We run all these hui and we run all these wananga courses and half of them in my mind—those in the universities—are a lot of nonsense. We get puha; we get diplomas that are not relevant and mean nothing. I say to Mr Brownlee that we should take our kids who are not going to the rocks and teach them about that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 That was an extraordinary contribution from the Minister of Maori Affairs and it showed just how confusing this legislation is even after 48 hours of debate on it. I want to cover three particular points because we are no wiser today than we were on Tuesday evening when the 138 pages of bill plus Supplementary Order Paper were tabled without response. 
My first point is that Labour Maori caucus members have said to their constituency that the legislation will deliver 10 percent or more of the foreshore and seabed as reserves. That is what they are claiming on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
. Either they are telling something different to other New Zealanders— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Who would read that? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well we are actually believing the Labour Maori caucus and what they say comes as no surprise. I come to Winston Peters. He led a very interesting exchange—[ 
Interruption 
]  
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It is a robust debate. Interjections are welcome but not of that nature. They will cease now. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The second confusion is this. I asked a very simple question. In relation to the new idea of foreshore reserves can there be a marine reserve in the same place as a foreshore reserve? Can there be an aquaculture marine area? Nanaia Mahuta from the Labour Party told us yes. I shall read the transcript. I asked the question: “Can there be a marine reserve and a foreshore reserve in the same area?”. Winston Peters said—and I shall quote from  
Hansard 
—“Of course not.” That is what he said yesterday. That is what  
Hansard 
 states in black and white. He went even further. He said I was a fool and an idiot to suggest that they can be in the same area. Yet Nanaia Mahuta has told us the opposite. The man who takes credit for the legislation who says he has been intricately involved in the drafting of it says a foreshore and seabed reserve cannot be in the same place as a marine reserve. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If the trustees agree. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Today he says if the trustees agree. Well that is not what he said yesterday. He should read his  
Hansard 
. He has no damn idea of the legislation that he has spoken of. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Surely you cannot allow that member to get away with what he has just done. We know that he is frenetic and sort of hectic but he cannot get away with throwing papers at another member. I reckon that it is about time his whip got him under control. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for raising that. That did happen. The paper was partly passed and partly thrown. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yesterday he said exactly the opposite. Any member who reads  
Hansard 
 will know that that member said one thing yesterday and something different today. 
We then come to the issue of wahi tapu. Members on this side respect the fact that there are burial grounds and other customary rights that need to be recognised. However this legislation has provisions that are so broad and so wide-ranging that any old thing will get by. We already know that wahi tapu under the definition that is provided are any areas that are of spiritual significance to Maori—and I tell Mr Samuels that there are Maori who have said that Ninety Mile Beach is of spiritual significance; they have claimed that—and that will be determined by the Maori Land Court. Dail Jones gave an extraordinary speech in the Committee stage about the Maori Land Court. Basically he told the Committee that we should have no confidence in its capacity to make fair judgments on those very issues. The significance of that is this: those wahi tapu provisions will see ordinary New Zealanders excluded from those areas of foreshore and seabed. 
So after 2 days of debate under this appalling process whereby 138 pages of law have been dumped on this Committee we still do not know for sure what we are passing. We still do not know. One person is saying one thing and another person is saying another thing in respect of how many areas will be foreshore reserves. It is a completely new concept. I am pretty sure that before Tuesday no New Zealander council or anybody had even heard of the idea of foreshore and seabed reserves and the Government will make them law today. The Labour Maori caucus is saying that they will apply to over 10 percent of foreshore and seabed—4 million hectares. I ask Margaret Wilson whether the Labour Maori caucus is correct in saying that they will cover 10-plus percent. The Minister is absolutely silent. New Zealanders have been told on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that the Labour Maori caucus is claiming that 10-plus percent will be set aside for foreshore reserves. The Labour Maori caucus knows but Margaret Wilson does not. 
We need answers to those sorts of basic questions and the reason National is opposed to this law is that it is a political con job. It is a political con job that completely fails to provide the sort of framework for all New Zealanders that will ensure our foreshore and seabed are properly managed. We are creating an array of new legal mechanisms that will create confusion and provide a field day for lawyers and the worst thing is that our foreshore and seabed will not be properly managed as a consequence. It is confusing contradictory and an absolute mess. I look forward to the next National Government fixing up this mess so that we can have foreshore and seabed legislation of which we can be proud. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The title of the bill is very bland and boring. It does not actually tell us what this bill does at all. Over the last day or so it has been very clearly outlined that this bill is about taking. It is about stealing. It has nothing to do with public access. We have seen that because public access rights are taken away by this bill. It has nothing to do with the protection of the foreshore and seabed from sale. Because of this legislation freehold titles are still able to be issued for a period. New Zealand First’s refusal to support my entrenchment clause has meant that it will remain an option to continue to sell the foreshore and seabed to foreign ownership. It is not committed to keeping New Zealand land in New Zealand hands let alone Maori land in Maori hands.  
The Minister of Maori Affairs stood in this House and blamed Maori for the loss of their own lands. He stood here and said that it is Maori’s fault that they do not have their land any more. He has denied the history of confiscation in this country denied the history of legislation that has come out of this House—from which this bill is a direct descendant—and blamed us for the land that was stolen from us. Let us call this bill the “Government Says ‘We Are The Champions’ Bill” because it has won. It has taken away from citizens of this country the right to go to court. Every person in this country must realise that this is the first step to the abolition of his or her civil rights. Is this what this country wants—a Government that will take away the right of its citizens to go to court because it does not like the outcome of the court decision? Is that what this country wants? No it is not.  
How about we call the bill the “Ha Ha You Lose We Win Bill?”. Again it is not about protecting public rights but about taking land because the Government wants complete control of the resources. How about calling it the “Tough Titty You Maoris Bill”? Maori will lose and lose under this. Nothing in this bill will give them anything. The customary rights orders have been so tightened that they will virtually be impossible to get. Only two or three iwi in the whole country will be able to get a territorial customary rights order because New Zealand First has put in place provisions that will make it impossible for them to get. [ 
Interruption 
]  
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The Minister has had his say. Please allow Metiria Turei to have hers. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: The rhetoric contained in the bill is a disgrace. As parliamentarians and lawmakers we need to be committed to making good law that actually means something. This whole House knows that the provisions that New Zealand First has put in about going to the High Court for various interested groups mean nothing. It is a deception. It will cheat New Zealanders because they will believe that they have a right in law that in fact they do not have. They will waste their money trying to see those rights achieved in law. They will discover that their efforts have been purposeless and worthless because New Zealand First wants to make a symbolic point that will render New Zealanders without rights. Is that the kind of law that we as parliamentarians want to enact? Is that the kind of law that New Zealanders want to see on their law books? No it is not.  
New Zealanders are crying out for just laws that restore justice in our country protect the rights of all citizens protect the rights to keep New Zealand land in New Zealand hands and protect the rights of Maori to go to the courts just like every other citizen. Yet very shortly this morning the House will pass a law that will strip away those rights. This Parliament will be in disgrace if we continue to proceed with this bill. But at this moment we are still in a position not to proceed with it. We can take another course. Right now thousands of New Zealanders are out there asking us to do something else—put this on hold and take another path. An unjust law is not in their best interests. They do not want to see the divisiveness that this legislation will permeate through their community. 
Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) 
: 
 I want to say to 99.9 percent of all New Zealanders in this country that at Christmas they can go down to the beach with their family with their children have a barbecue have a hangi and go fishing. It was amazing to hear a speaker from the ACT party say that when she goes down to the beach with her kids they might be stopped by wardens and if they do not leave they might be fined. Let me give her some advice. She should take the kids down to the beach take suntan oil and do the “slip slop slap” so they do not get sunburnt lie on the beach have a good time and build sandcastles. But my advice is: do not go down on the bulldozer because fisheries officers will be there and wardens will be there to make sure that people use the beach appropriately for the benefit of all New Zealanders including Maori.  
I heard of a statement made by somebody who sits opposite: “I will oppose this bill with every fibre of my body.” Who said that? I am still trying to identify who said that. But that person has been an apparition—has not been seen has not turned up here. [ 
Interruption 
] I am just saying that is what I heard from a person who sits across the other side of the Chamber: “I will oppose the bill with every fibre in my body.” Today we have seen the National Party roll out the dead—a few have come out of the deep freeze. Today they say they will oppose this bill. The reason why they oppose this bill is quite clear—and one thing about the National Party is that they tell the truth they are clear they tell the facts. The reason why they oppose the bill is that it provides customary rights for Maori in this country. That is why the National Party opposes the bill.  
I turn to the title of this bill. In 1993 the House passed Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the National Party was the Government. I wonder why the National Government did not think perhaps about the implications of a Court of Appeal decision in terms of the jurisdiction of the Maori Land Court? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why didn’t Maori think about it? 
Hon DOVER SAMUELS 
: Why did the National Government not think about it? The outcome is a sham. That legislation of 1993 empowered the Maori Land Court—and the National Party was the Government. They never ever mentioned anything; never dreamt about the foreshore and seabed. Yet we have a Court of Appeal. There no Maori on that court; no Maori amongst those high-flying judges. They are all Pakeha and they determined that in fact the Maori Land Court has the jurisdiction to hear applications not just about land but the foreshore the seabed under the water out to the 12-mile continental shelf. What an absolute sham!  
I am saying that if the Parliament had decided that the Maori Land Court should have jurisdiction then it would have titled the legislation of 1993 the “Maori Ture Whenua (Foreshore Seabed and Land) Act”. But it did not and here we are back here today listening to the claptrap from the other side of the Chamber from members of a previous Government that was responsible for promoting that Act.  
I have a vested interest a conflict of interest in this foreshore and seabed legislation. I want to say that before Rodney Hide or the ACT party start frothing at the mouth about it. I am a member of the hapu Ngati Wai like my whanaunga the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Ngati Wai people are actually by the sea—generations and generations of our tupuna. We have never been accorded any rights or recognition in terms of our customary rights whatsoever. Today I am proud to stand with my colleagues and my Maori colleagues on the other side to give recognition to the customary rights that our people have had for generations and generations.  
I say to our people that if they do not want to pick up that opportunity they do not have to. If they do not want to go to the Maori Land Court or the High Court they do not have to. This Government is not going to take them around the neck and force them to go to the Maori Land Court or the High Court. But that is their option. They have the option to codify their rights in the law. So when the local councils come along with some extraordinary or unusual development project our people can say: “Hang on. This is crossing and transgressing the customary rights of our people.” Is that not fair? The lunatics—the people who have been smoking too much puha and are hallucinating—say they represent Maori.  
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I have been in the Chamber now for 3 hours in total since last night and this is my first call. This bill is being rammed through. The title should not be “Seabed and Foreshore” it should be the “Beach Trolls Empowerment Bill”. Dover Samuels just mocked the idea that there would be fees and that wardens would be enforcing fees. I tell Mr Samuels that the  
Spirit of New Zealand 
 trust that takes kids on sail training all around the country has had to drop Mayor Island off its agenda because every time the kids wanted to swim ashore from the boat beach trolls emerged from the rocks and tried to charge every one of them a fee and the trust could not afford it. What is the Government going to do about that? That is the sort of thing that these beach wardens will be doing. This is formalising kaitiaki-ship—although no one knows what that means— 
Hon Member 
: Guardianship. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Guardianship? No guarding the koha. That is what it is all about. This bill is just a grab for power from a Government that is willing to give it by setting up a false form of ownership where the real control goes to a race-selected minority. This is absolutely a dishonest piece of law. We are opposing this somewhat to the surprise of many decent members of ACT National and other parties because they have a view that the Government must be doing something right if Maori are jumping up and down so much. That is the only way they can judge it because there has been no truthful information about this bill for months. There has been nothing. This bill comes back full of new clauses and we are told we have an hour and a half to read it. No wonder New Zealanders can judge only on the basis that Maori are jumping up and down and Tariana Turia does not like it!  
What it has actually done is very simple: it has taken the beaches from the control of local communities and local authorities and vested it in the Minister of Conservation. It is telling Maori that they can then front up and ask for guardianship rights in respect of customary activities that the bill does not define. It pretends to say that it does not cover spiritualism and then does. So there will be taniwha around every headland because it will be in the interests of people to invent them. Because it also expressly provides that when people want to do something on their beaches when they want to do something with a piece of coastline they can get the Maori people’s deeply deeply felt love for customary activity waived—as long as Maori sign the application to the court it can be waived. There is money in this but it is only negative. It puts Maori in a position of being always negative.  
 There is no real property right under this bill. If this bill were really conferring proper property rights Maori could be positive about it. They would be looking to see the useful things they would be doing with this land. Instead the only value they can extract is by being a pain in the neck to their neighbours. The only value they can extract is through extortion payments—through holding to ransom and then signing the application to the court. Then the court can accept that the customary activity is not being infringed.  
This bill also exempts these areas under guardianship from the provisions of the Resource Management Act—the only justifiable provisions in the Resource Management Act. These are the ones that say we cannot pollute and we cannot trash the flora and fauna. The Act exempts them from that. There is no explanation from the Ministers as to why there should be an exemption from the 10 most critical sections of the Resource Management Act. It is obvious. What was done here is a set of trade-offs. They were not going to provide real property rights to Maori on the very small areas that the courts would have found they were entitled to. Instead they create this shared management—and no man can serve two masters happily—across all of New Zealand potentially. We are aware from what the Maori caucus members themselves are saying it is at least 10 percent.  
This bill will live with as much infamy in New Zealanders’ memories in 10 years’ time as section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act. This deal has been trumpeted as simply the status quo. That is what David Lange told his Cabinet colleagues in 1986-87: “This is just the status quo; it does not mean anything.” This bill means a great deal. This is an entrenchment of racism in this country. There is nothing to justify the creation of these rights other than ethnic inheritance. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 It would be well to remind us all what New Zealand First stands for in respect of this bill. I want therefore to speak to the short title and to the amendments. Just to reiterate we began with Crown ownership as a guaranteed component. We talked about guaranteed access customary rights for all New Zealanders and one law for all under the legal process. That is where we stood in June and we stand there today.  
We hear some of the imagined posturings around the House and I am very sorry to say that the Green member seems somehow to be grounded in urban grievances of about 50 years ago. That member has no understanding of those of us who have a conflict of interest because we have been coastal dwellers along with many other thousands of Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. We understand exactly what the foreshore is. We understand the seabed and we also understand the legal process implicit in this bill.  
That brings me to the second point. Last night and today by implication there seems to be some ability in this Chamber to go all around in a wide-ranging debate and forget what the amendments and the bill stand for. Let us look at it very very quickly. Part 2 concerns the Resource Management Act and on matters of national importance we have already heard an allusion last night and again today to the relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with the ancestral lands water sites wahi tapu and other taonga. That is the law now and what will be added to that law is the protection of recognised customary activities forming an addition to Part 6 but one that is for all. Therefore Maori and New Zealanders of European and other backgrounds will benefit from that inclusion.  
Secondly in respect of this particular matter there was misunderstanding last night either deliberate or unknown as to where Part 2 stands. All these items are of national importance and all of them are ranked equally. All of them would be valued for themselves in any jurisdiction or any consent hearing. After proper weighting had been given to the value then and then only would the jurisdiction hearing an application at the ground level as it were start to assign due consideration to it. That is one law for all and all are equally matters of national importance.  
Last night I heard comment made that suggested very strongly that this new addition was somehow outstanding and was going to have prior importance. That is just not so and anyone here who understands case law and has been involved in any consent hearing knows exactly what is true.  
The third matter I wish to turn to is that of veto. It was much discussed in the course of the earlier debate. I reiterate that no veto was implicit or expressed in the language of this amendment to the bill—none at all. In actual fact as I said last night any consent hearing or any body must have regard to this suite of guidance these very clear criteria step by step that affect the area—the actual history of it the alternative which are all part of such a discussion—and in the end after all of those carefully delineated steps in the criteria if there is no significant adverse effect then and then only will the consent body make the decision. There is no veto there just a proper and normal legal process.  
The last thing I want to say concerns those bodies that came to the select committee and expressed their concerns quite rightly—and I am talking about the utility groups and the various other concerns of groups such as Transpower and the port companies. Despite the comments made by National Party members last night their certainty and their rights to perform are absolutely guaranteed in these amendments and in this bill. They are there. If members wish to read carefully the constructions placed there they will see just that.  
We should be able to go out of this Chamber at the end of the day and assure all of those groups that normal business is as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow and that up until the point of the commencement of this Act all the rights that had accrued and all the developments that had been properly processed and the procedures adhered to will take place—there is no limitation whatsoever. On behalf of New Zealand First I am pleased to be able to stand and support again this part of the bill. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 We have come to the final part of the Committee stage debate and I am pleased finally to get to a part that United Future can support. We will agree that the title “Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004” is a good one and we will be happy to vote for it. But up until this point as we have been going through the debate there has not been a single part that we have been able to support entirely because there are still many things that ought to be addressed in this legislation. We have however supported the Minister’s amendments throughout this process because we are engaged constructively in trying to make this bad bill a better bill. We are of the opinion that these amendments are accomplishing that.  
Winston Peters may be able to travel around New Zealand and claim that he has fixed it and that everything is now OK but we would not take that opinion. He will try to take all the credit for all of these amendments but many of them were discussed by the select committee in its deliberation and consideration and there are more than just New Zealand First that can claim credit for this. Winston Peters’ response to all the legitimate questions that people have around New Zealand is that we should trust him. He is the white knight in shining armour who will solve all our problems if we will just trust him. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What’s your poll? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: I say to Mr Peters that I am afraid that when we look at his recent polls at 5 percent he has to understand that he has a long way to go before a majority of New Zealanders will trust him again. United Future has been involved in a constructive engaged process to try to make this bill the best it can be and we have been listening to the concerns of submitters throughout this process. We have not supported any other parts in this legislation so far and I will give members a quick summary of the reasons. Part 1—the discussion surrounding public domain versus sole Crown ownership—meant that we could not support that part. Part 2 concerns the issues around the entrenchment of clause 12(2)(b) which we hoped this Parliament would do in response to the concerns about the future alienation of the foreshore and seabed.  
Part 3 is concerned with the applications for cancellation of a customary rights order. It is certainly not clear enough nor prohibitive enough to protect Maori from losing their interests in that regard. Regarding Part 4—it is a complete sham to try to make out as though anyone other than Maori could get a customary rights order and we had a robust debate about that last night. 
 In Part 5 there are the issues around putting it into the matters of national significance and there is also clause 100 which contains the crazy idea that once one reclaims some land and turns it into dry land one cannot ever get title to it. In Part 6 there are the issues around clause 112. There is still insufficient transparency about the deals that will go on between the Government and applicants. Clause 2 is another reason we cannot support it. We support the title issue but unfortunately we will not be able to support clause 2 in terms of the commencement date for this legislation because there is a problem with it and I will address the rest of my comments to that.  
Because most of this legislation will come into effect on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent there will not be sufficient time for many people around New Zealand to approach the Minister of Conservation as is set out in section 355AA(2)(b) in new clause 100A in order to get a written agreement with an applicant to vest a right title or interest in the relevant land. I imagine that the Minister of Conservation’s mailbox will be chock-a-block in the next couple of days as port authorities and people like the Wellington Reclamation Society the Waterfront Society and others seek to get a written agreement with the Minister of Conservation so that they may be able to get fee-simple title to the land they have paid for to get reclaimed which is going to be prohibited to them unless they have already got this written agreement.  
So I believe that the commencement date should be extended at least a couple of months to enable that process to occur. For that reason we will not be able to support the current commencement date which will probably be today or tomorrow after this bill is rushed through Parliament under urgency. The continued concerns we have expressed over the process of this legislation and the need for urgency this week has never been justified and the people of New Zealand ought to have been able to contemplate the massive number of amendments proposed in this legislation while they sat on the beach all through the summer. It would have been a great setting for further discussion and consultation on the beach under their umbrellas with their suntan lotion on. Therefore we could have resolved it. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour—Napier) 
: 
 I am delighted to have this chance to speak particularly when NgahiwiTomoana the chief executive officer of Ngati Kahungunu is in the Chamber. Ngati Kahungunu of course have responsibility for a huge part of New Zealand’s coastline and this bill affects very much tribal Maori in my electorate and its environs. 
I want to discuss the title of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. That title of course is a code. The real title should be the “Property Rights Recognition Regime Bill” but if it were called that we would not know what property rights we were talking about. So it has to be boiled down to foreshore and seabed property rights because this bill is entirely concerned with a property rights regime relating to the foreshore and seabed. 
I find it surprising that ACT is critical of that property rights regime and even criticises the wahi tapu aspects because in the report of the select committee ACT described the sanctity of property rights. Of course sanctity is holiness. It is a spiritual concept so ACT must therefore endorse the wahi tapu aspects of this bill which has exactly those aspects. But logic has never been part of ACT philosophy. 
Logic has also evaded all the speeches from National members particularly when they resort to that fatuous label of racism. The use of that term shows either their inability to read the bill and understand its concepts or a basic dishonesty in the way they approach their arguments.  
The characteristic of property is that there is a degree of exclusivity—a degree of ownership and control. What are the property right regimes in this bill? The property rights characteristics are that the rights must have been in existence in 1840. There is some exclusivity. They must have been in continuous existence and have been controlled by the same group since 1840 and they must have continued in that way to the present time. That is the determination of the property right. 
Because that right may apply more to Maori than Pakeha or only to Maori and not to Pakeha—no one can say which—it does not make it racist. It makes it no more racist than to say that the children of the rich who fund the coffers of some of the parties in this House are not entitled to that money because they inherited it. The elitism that comes by the old-school network in this country and that is perpetuated by the bandwagons it pushes is no worse than the property rights Maori are entitled to because they were here and exercised those rights from pre-1840 to the present time. 
Property rights are colourless. Property rights are not morally bound. Property rights are not determined by the colour of one’s skin one’s secular orientation or even one’s gender. Property rights are neutral on all those issues. The fact that some people qualify for property rights over others is part of the sanctity of property rights that ACT proclaims and in that respect this bill and ACT have something in common and ACT still has time to recognise that publicly in this Chamber. 
We have heard from the Green Party and we have heard some interjections from the Maori Party—and I must say “interjections” because that party has refused to take calls to explain its position on this bill. It claims that this is confiscation but it cannot be confiscation if it is codification of an existing property right. I think the argument that it is confiscation goes one step back and says: “Ah! We had rights once to property which have now gone. This Act does not now deliver on them therefore it is confiscation.” 
The Maori Party is really saying that this bill should include a grievance process such as in the Waitangi Tribunal. Well the bill does make reference to that because it states that it does not interfere with any rights to claim under the Treaty of Waitangi through the Waitangi Tribunal. So any rights that are no longer in existence today but will be in existence tomorrow and were valid once become a matter of grievance claim under the Treaty of Waitangi. There is no confiscation. The words codification and confiscation have similarity only in the first two letters. Other than that they are different concepts and have different uses. To confuse codification with confiscation is at best laziness and at worst a lack of candour. 
I want to talk about Mr Nick Smith’s hysterical contribution to this debate. Someone said he does not need a judge he needs a doctor but I am not sure— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member will withdraw that remark. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: I withdraw. It seems to me that if the man would take some method to calm down and consider the concepts then he would realise that Part 17 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is what is reflected in the reserve provisions in this bill. It is a well-established regime. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I shudder to think what New Zealanders are thinking about Parliament this morning. They look to this place for leadership and I guess they just keep on looking—they will always keep on looking. In my view leadership has not been demonstrated by this minority Government not in the way it has put this whole process together and not in terms of the substance of the bill. This bill sets up a hoax. It is a cruel hoax. It promises everything to everybody then sets up a convoluted framework that will have people involved in judicial processes that will go on and on. At the end of the process the expectations that have been raised for all New Zealanders will surely not be realised. That is why I say it is not leadership.  
The main bill is called the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. It should be called— 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek leave for the leader of the National Party to take a call. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No I do not want any points of order along those lines. That was actually out of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek leave to take a call on behalf of the leader of the National Party. That is in order. It is! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I know that the member’s comment is closer to being in order but I really do not want to hear any more points of order along those lines. [ 
Interruption 
] I am not giving an actual warning but it will be pretty sudden when I do. I do not want to hear such points of order. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There have been two points of order that were totally out of order. Georgina te Heuheu should have her time from the beginning of her speech. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I accept that and I am well aware of it. She will have ample time. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Mr Samuels has just demonstrated the kind of lack of leadership I was referring to.  
This bill is a hoax. On the one hand Winston Peters says to Maori: “Don’t worry your mana”—I am not sure how he sees that but I will give him the benefit of the doubt—“will be upheld.” Gosh he should tell that to all those Maori who are already planning to disrupt things this Christmas. On the other hand he says to all New Zealanders: “Don’t you worry. Your access to the beaches will be unimpeded because this foreshore and seabed will be in Crown ownership in perpetuity for your benefit forever and a day.” Clearly that is not true. He was wanting to be able to talk in that way before we knew that Nanaia Mahuta was going to support the bill anyway. Whereas Winston Peters kept saying that New Zealand First would fix it in the end his support probably was not required.  
This is all politics and we should not deny that. Politics have ruled this whole process and this bill since the Court of Appeal decision last year. A more appropriate title for Dr Cullen’s monument—this will be his monument no doubt; a bit of a cruel monument his epitaph—would be the “Foreshore and Seabed (‘We won. You lost. Eat that!’) Bill” because that is how he is treating New Zealanders in the bill he is presenting to Parliament and overseeing the passing of into law today. Shame on him!  
I am pleased that the Hon Dover Samuels can stand and give such confident assurance to New Zealanders: “Don’t worry. This Christmas you can go down to the beach take your slip-slop”—or whatever he said—“and your barbie. Everything is OK.” There is a report out this morning that Anaru Kira of Ngati Kura plans to block Dover Samuels’ own beach in Matauri Bay so that when he goes home either today or tomorrow he will somehow have to find access to his own beach. If that is a warning of things to come then this bill has failed badly in what it purports to do.  
I refer to the contribution from the Minister of Maori Affairs because he is the leading Maori. He holds the highest position on behalf of Maori and somewhere in his speech I think I was able to pick out one or two things. I could not understand most of it but I think he was alluding to the fact that all our young and bright Maori are developing and coming through. That is the one thing I do agree with him on. I do not know that there was much leadership shown there. However that is what we are stuck with.  
I say again to Maori people: “Don’t get angry! Don’t give them the benefit of seeing you get angry.” There is no point in that for our young people. I want young Maori in our schools and colleges to take hope because there is a whole side of Maori activity that is never talked about or proclaimed. I congratulate the entrepreneurs particularly Maori women in business and young Maori in business. I congratulate the Federation of Maori Authorities which oversees over a thousand economic entities some of them significant undertakings in managing multimillion dollar assets and in contributing to our economy. Members can see in this morning’s  
Dominion Post 
 if they have not already seen it a picture of a whole group of people having lunch on the side of Lake Taupo in a huge glasshouse. That trust the Tuaropaki Trust generates power and contributes to the national grid by supplying power to 30000 users. That is where Maori are at. 
MAHARA OKEROA (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 It is with some pride that I stand here. However there will be people who disagree with that position. I want to explore further the quotation that Dover Samuels used. This is what was said by Dr Brash in his interview with Paul Holmes: “We will oppose it with every fibre of our being.”—na katu kaha mai te tangata; with every fibre of our being. I want to explore further the fact that this Parliament was denied that extraordinary experience and spectacle—because it did not happen. We did not see that “fibre”; we did not see the tu kaha o te tangata. We saw nothing. Although that sounds hugely Churchillian at least Sir Winston Churchill that great statesman of the 20th century stood on the beaches and fought. Maybe that is a classic example for the Leader of the Opposition who denied us the opportunity to see that incredible spectacle.  
The other unusual thing was what we heard from the honourable member Wayne Mapp yesterday when he said he believes in what he reads in the newspaper. What an astounding public announcement that was to make in this Chamber! How could he do that? Why does he take the  
New Zealand Herald  
as the basis for his belief? Maori are criticised because they have a spiritual belief long held over many generations yet there is Wayne Mapp saying he believes in what he reads in the newspaper. That is astounding.  
Another thing that I heard last night refers to wahi tapu. It came from the member for Coromandel. I cannot quote it exactly but this is what it meant. In a sense the member said that she would not tolerate any customary value other than what was imposed on her. Yet Maori have a whole history of being imposed on. What this bill does is to recognise the customary rights and usages of Maori—as we should do. How can someone come from Coromandel and have that kind of attitude? If we are to talk about this bill being racist what do we have a demonstration of in that comment?  
Another point came from the Hon Dr Nick Smith. He had something to say about wahi tapu. There are degrees of wahi tapu for sure. If he is talking about the Wakapuakataiapure estuary then he should know he is the person who generated all the opposition to it. On that estuary there is a wahi tapu and it is an urupa. I have been led to respect non-Maoriwahi tapu like churches museums or whatever non-Maori see as significant. We have been brought up to respect those places so I would not drive my four-wheel drive vehicle over a non-Maori cemetery just in order to get to the beach. How can the provisions that we are making in our bill be racist?  
This bill is not about land; it is about the foreshore and seabed. It is not about people throwing toys out of cots or about political point-scoring. It is not about taking emotive positions that are not based on the facts of the matter. As a member of the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee I was appalled at one of the submitters a young person who gave us a co-submission in which she said categorically that she would not be able to go to the beach to get kai for her koro and kuia. How can the Opposition be responsible for transmitting a message of that nature? How can it do that? That is totally immoral. I have to ask where that comes from in terms of propaganda and misinformation. How can that be so? New Zealand First and this Government are accused on the one hand of alienating the foreshore and seabed and on the other hand of stealing them. We are not stealing the foreshore and seabed. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 We of course have seen all this before. That is why we believe that this bill should be called the “Just One More Rip-off in a Long History of Them Bill”. The tragedy is that this mean-minded approach was unnecessary and is unnecessarily destructive. There is a simple solution to this issue and the Greens have been saying that from the beginning. It is to allow Maori to proceed to the court—allow their customary property rights to be recognised and allow them due process—but to amend Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to allow customary rights to be recognised without a transfer to fee simple title and to require negotiation over rights of reasonable public access. In that way we could recognise mana whenua guarantee public access and meet the needs of all New Zealanders. I would be more confident that public access would remain and that the foreshore and seabed would remain in New Zealand hands if it is left in Maori collective ownership rather than in the hands of the Crown. We only have to remember the fourth Labour Government to know what happens to national assets that are left in the hands of the Crown. We all know what is going on.  
Russell Fairbrother told us that this legislation is not a land confiscation and that it is just a codification of customary rights. I believe that the member was being duplicitous when he said that because it is pretty obvious that a whole heap of Maori land was stolen by the use of “legal codification” in the past. That loss of Maori land is not and cannot be rectified by tossing the tangata whenua a few crumbs. Dover Samuels said that if Parliament had intended the Maori Land Court to look at the foreshore and seabed it would have called Te Ture Whenua Maori Act the “Te Ture Whenua Maori Foreshore and Seabed Act”. But I am surprised that the member seems to have the view that only those rights defined by the Crown are legitimate rights. I would not have thought that the member would take that kind of view. I would have thought he would recognise that one of the important points of the Court of Appeal decision was its recognition of customary rights that pre-existed the assertion of the right of governorship by the Crown.  
Russell Fairbrother also said that property rights should not be determined by the colour of one’s skin and other things. That is quite right. What we are talking about is property rights that are determined by kinship. We all recognise that. I have a right to inherit property that my parents leave to me and that is a property right determined by kinship. We are talking about a similar kind of thing but this bill removes property rights on the basis of ethnicity. As the Hon Richard Prebble and other members of this Committee have said this bill removes property rights from Maori on the basis that they are Maori. It takes away customary property rights under common law but it leaves untouched property rights under the Torrens fee simple title system which pertains to land owned by Pakeha and others. So as has been said this is a racist law. It is specifically designed to target Maori and no other people.  
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Rubbish! 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: Of course it is. This is really about the inability of the Crown to deal with the concept of collective ownership based not on Crown grant but on tikanga Maori.  
It is curious that other countries seem to be able to deal with that issue. Canada has jurisprudence around indigenous forms of collective ownership but in this country we seem to be simply incapable of dealing with the issue because the Crown is absolutely paranoid about losing control and power. Exactly the same desire to maintain control has been behind the Government’s attacks on the Supreme Court. We saw the comments by Trevor Mallard that were reported in the newspaper today criticising the merit of the judges who sit on the Supreme Court. I think that the Court of Appeal decision on the case that resulted in this legislation made when those same judges were on the Court of Appeal is exactly what is behind those comments. We have the courts making decisions that are uncomfortable and inconvenient for the Government. The only recourse that the Government has is to attack their credibility—to undermine the courts and to question their merit and competence. That behaviour is totally opposed to the conventions we have on the separation of powers. It is totally unacceptable. The Government needs to have a good hard look at itself. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the title of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. This is a bill that vests the foreshore and seabed in the Crown in order to give all New Zealanders the right of access to the foreshore and seabed. It is clearly a means of protecting the rights of all New Zealanders. New Zealand First has shown leadership and strength on this issue and I must congratulate my colleague Dail Jones on that. He has done a lot of work and spent many many hours through to midnight and beyond working on it. New Zealand First has ensured that there is one law for all New Zealanders and that everyone in New Zealand has the right of access to the foreshore and seabed. It is in Crown ownership for that very reason.  
I have sat in the Chamber and listened to National Party and ACT members waffle and dribble on about what is wrong with this bill. There have been desperate attempts by them to try to discredit it. But every time that those members have stood up they have illustrated that they do not understand this bill. They have got up and tried to discredit it simply because they do not understand it. How many times over the 48 hours that we have been debating this bill has the bill been described to them in one-syllable words? And yet they still do not understand it; they have not been able to get to grips with it. I would like to make sure that the lights are turned on as it is a wee bit dim over the National Party members who have failed to understand this bill. Either they have not bothered to read it or they do not understand the way it is written and the way it protects the rights of all New Zealanders to have access to the foreshore and seabed.  
National has continued in a desperate attempt to try to find something wrong with the bill but it has come up with weak flimflam examples. When National had an opportunity to show that it really supported the foreshore and seabed and particularly the Bayswater Marina it voted against the Supplementary Order Paper that came before the Committee to protect and support the Bayswater Marina decision. Therefore National has shown that it has no interest in anything whatsoever except to sell up the foreshore and seabed. National wants the Bayswater Marina to be in private ownership. It wants to sell it off to anybody and particularly to overseas buyers. That does not help anybody and it certainly does not help Maori. All that National wants to do is to help the wealthy and to sell that marina to them—particularly to overseas investors. Therefore Maori and all New Zealanders would lose everything. This bill has ensured that the marina will not be sold to anyone—it will not be sold either overseas or locally.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It’s a great bill. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: It is a great bill and New Zealand First is proud that we have spent so much time on getting it right. We have shown leadership— 
Dail Jones 
: Can we fix it? 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: I am being asked whether we could fix it. We have shown that we could fix it and New Zealand First has fixed it. Yes we can fix it. New Zealand First has fixed it; we have shown that we can fix it.  
On another note I want to make sure that National understands that the part of the bill that deals with the Resource Management Act has clearly made decisions under that Act a lot clearer. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Before I call the next member I have a correction to make to votes. I advise that the results were not correctly announced on the votes on the questions that Part 6 as amended be agreed to that schedule 1 as amended be agreed to and that schedule 4 as amended be agreed to 
. 
 In each case the result was Ayes 66 and Noes 54 not Ayes 76 and Noes 44. 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 This will be good. Members have asked for the great debater to come to the Chamber. I have heard the call and here I am. Mahara Okeroa took a call; at last he has found his tongue. Unfortunately he is a lion in the Chamber but on the marae he is a mouse. Where was he when his people really needed him? Where was he when his people were asking for due process? He was not at home then. The great shame about this whole bill is that it did not have to happen. It is all premised around a Court of Appeal decision that led some people to say that Maori would have ownership of the foreshore and seabed. If cool heads had prevailed and if people had taken the time to read that judgment they would have understood that that was never stated in the first place. But we have a poll-driven Government that thought because that was the public perception it would sneak this bill through Parliament in undue rude haste.  
I say to the Maori caucus that it has changed its tune now. I can remember when the Labour Maori MPs were out on the streets of this country saying that they would not vote for this legislation and would not do dirty backroom deals. That is the great shame of the Maori caucus. That is the way history will remember those members. That is the way they will be reported on the streets of this country today tomorrow next week and the weeks and years after that.  
The great shame of it all is that people like Winston Peters have put their name to this deal. Winston Peters is a man who was nourished in the bosom of the National Party. He did all his training with it. He spent the formative years of his political career in the National Party being groomed for bigger and better things. And what has he done? Winston Peters has ruined that distinguished career by having this millstone around his neck. He will have on his tombstone the words: “Here lies a politician who sold the farm for a few cheap votes.” I can understand people like Michael Cullen doing that because that is all he has ever known. But guys like Winston Peters and the New Zealand First members whom I have some respect for ought to know better than to do that.  
New Zealanders are being dispossessed by stealth. [ 
Interruption 
] The member will get his chance. They are now being told that everything is OK because the issue has been fixed. Well it has not been fixed. Naughty dirty backroom deals have been done so that New Zealanders can be dispossessed. We are told that ancestral connection has been taken out of this bill. That is an absolute nonsense. Those words may have been taken out—they were too controversial for the Government and the weak members of the Maori caucus. But members of the National Party who have read the bill—who have looked at what has taken place—know that put into the Resource Management Act now is a sneaky dirty little process whereby people can be dispossessed at will. And the Government does not even have to go to the public. It can just sign away by cheque after cheque people’s traditions and ancestry. People in this country deserve better leadership and better governance than they are getting from the likes of Michael Cullen and his cohorts.  
I can tell members something else. Everyone talks about the Port of Timaru people being happy. Well new clause 100 does not take care of that issue. People from the Port of Timaru have called me and said they still worried about it. They have said the Government has not thought the issue out at all and have asked me how they can grow the port if they do not have certainty. 
GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) 
: 
 It is a privilege to take a brief call on the provisions we are debating which are the title and commencement clauses. I dare say that members will be aware that I have been listening to this debate since it began earlier this week but I have decided now that I should make my contribution and have it recorded. My prevarications at the very beginning of this process some months back may have had people wondering what I was up to and whether I would change my mind again. The answer is yes to the latter. 
This is one of those bills that has sorely tested many if not all members of this Parliament. It has altered the landscape of personal relationships in some respects between members of this Parliament. I acknowledge that in some instances I too have felt that way. 
I expressed to my caucus earlier in the year that I wished to abstain on the first reading of the bill. I had reservations then but I was not quite sure exactly what they were. They revolved around the issue of access to the judicial process that Maori in this instance had pursued—which of course ended up in a Court of Appeal decision. I have now accepted that the Government was put between a rock and a hard place on a decision it had to make about fee simple title particularly regarding the foreshore and seabed that was not encompassed within Te Ture Whenua Maori Act or the ambit of the Maori Land Court—which could really grant only fee simple title if any grant were to be made at all. 
If we are to be a nation that is proud of moving forward like two people but as one then that has to be practised through important founding leading legislation such as this. In my support for this bill I acknowledge the contributions I have heard so far from all sides of the Chamber—yes we still have a third reading debate to occur—that outline members’ particular arguments and points of view. But I have to say that it has been absolutely disappointing to hear the shallow fact-less arguments that have come from the Opposition with regard to this legislation. After 18 months of going through the legislation one would have thought that although Opposition members claimed they had had only an hour or two to get their heads around the Supplementary Order Papers etc. they might have come up with more substantial arguments. 
I am proud of the Labour Party and its Maori caucus. I am certainly grateful and proud that the Rt Hon Winston Peters and New Zealand First have shown leadership in this debate and in this argument. They have made a decision that will provide greater certainty than we ever would have had if any from other than this Labour Government were sitting on the Treasury benches. 
Given the circumstances under which we had to work the country can be grateful that we have come to what I think is an amicable conclusion in order to bring the country to rest on this important and vital issue. I do not believe as a Maori that we will be completely written off as some in this Committee have purported will be the case. The facts do not stack up when we hear the arguments from this side of Chamber compared with the arguments from the opposite side. We are moving in the right direction. I have only great credit to bestow upon the members of both my caucus and the New Zealand First caucus who have seen fit to progress this legislation. 
It must be noted that the National Opposition has been caught on the back foot. It would have been really good to have heard something from its leader. Unfortunately we were not privileged to hear that—it was given to the mouthpieces. National members have done an awful job so far of defending their point of view but I respect that that is all they are capable of. God help us if they return to this side of the Chamber after the next election. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to take a short call to give my last comments in this debate—comments on clause 2 which relates to what will be the commencement date of this legislation if it passes through its third reading today. Before I do so I offer a few comments of caution to New Zealand First and in particular to Brent Catchpole. He made his last speech with a great euphoric rush of blood to the head in being able to say: “We fixed it.” I say some words of caution: if the member claims credit for fixing it he will not be able to get away from taking responsibility for things if they go wrong. 
This morning there has already been a violent attack upon the Prime Minister’s electorate office. Many in New Zealand hope and pray that that is the extent of what will take place around the country. We condemn that action we believe there is no excuse for it and we urge New Zealanders to show restraint and patience on this issue. But it is an indication of the depth of feeling that exists over this legislation and of the amount of concern about the process. New Zealand First should be very cautious about taking all the credit because the blame in that regard will rest squarely with its members if they do so. 
I suggest the commencement date be postponed to some extent because there is a need—and I again urge the Government to take my suggestion—for communication to go out to the four corners of our country to explain the changes that have occurred in this legislation so that people may get on board with what the legislation is really doing and may not get caught up in all the mistruths and half-truths that have been shared around. 
I also want to make some comments as local government spokesperson for United Future about the effects of this legislation on local government particularly in regard to the new statutory right of access. I think we all welcome the fact that that right is now being enshrined in our statutes but I have some concerns about it. I asked questions in the select committee and I did not get a full response.  
Firstly I hope there is no need for a mad scramble by our local authorities to review their by-laws in regard to access to foreshore and beaches over the summer because of this new statutory right which is much broader than what has been in place or been understood prior to this legislation. I just hope local governments are not suddenly thrown into a flap by having to review their by-laws in order to contain issues that may arise from this new statutory right for all New Zealanders—issues not just of foot access but also of four-wheel drive access and everything else that may flow from that. 
Secondly local authorities will of course have a lot more work to do in order to handle what is coming through in this legislation. I hope they are given time to completely absorb it all and prepare for it. I therefore suggest that a deferment of the commencement would be wise to give the Government an opportunity to take up my suggestions for communication and to give local government some respect as well as an opportunity to get ready to handle this legislation as it comes through. Local authorities were put under incredible pressure when the Prostitution Reform Act was passed and they had to go into a mad flap over by-laws and so on. I hope that will not be the case under this legislation. With that I conclude my comments in this debate which has been robust and enjoyable.  
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 It has been quite interesting listening to the last few speakers. I was thankful that the bloke with the nice-looking hat came in to support our tuahine because she has been here by herself. But he has gone away again like the leader of that group who is not here. It was fascinating in the sense of— 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I understand that members cannot refer to whether other members are here in the Chamber. I ask the member to withdraw that remark. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is correct. Certainly one cannot refer to members being absent. I ask Mr Horomia to withdraw that remark. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I withdraw and apologise. The member’s overview was fascinating in the context of how this is relevant to overseas countries that have different treaties a different economy and different circumstances—such as what happened in Canada. The myth of trying to correlate that with what is happening here—with the doom merchants and the people at the extremes believing that international practices will save us—is a whole lot of hogwash. It is fascinating to those who know the history of what happened in the settlements in Canada.  
I listened to the mumbling muppet who mentioned issues around a weak Labour 
Maori caucus. I will tell members about the Maori caucus in this Government; I will tell them about the courage of this Maori caucus. We are at an all-time low in unemployment. Who did that? This country did. If members want to talk about other countries why has our ranking in the OECD accelerated? Who did that? This country did. We have got Maori Television going. Who did that? The Maori caucus did along with this Government. In the last 5 years we have doubled tertiary education 
participation by Maori people. Who did that? We did it along with the wananga the universities and especially our young demographic. That is the reality that is happening around all of this.  
Every reasonable historian knows that after 200 years as a settled society a clanking happens—a hump starts to appear in terms of the tensions and strains of contemporary times. That is what is happening here. Who created the impact and effects of the labour market? Our party did along with the Maori caucus. Who has a Maori language strategy with the aim that within 25 years every Maori whanau in this country will speak their language well? This Maori caucus has. Who amended the legislation on tax issues around lands? This Government did.  
I do not hear about all of 
that. We hear all about the extremes. People want to lock us down in the dungeons of doom and gloom and keep us in the deficit and dependency mode. That is the great thing that is coming out of the prattle from those on the opposite side of the Chamber. They say: “I have Maori friends and 
” 
—some of them— 
“ 
I actually married one of them but don’t give them any more than what they’ve ever had. Don’t dare do that because we’re used to conquest we’re used to controlling and we’re used to utilising power at the negative extreme.” That member knows about that.  
I say with great pride that this Government has made some of the most dramatic changes and turn-rounds in Maori development in this period of time. That is why I am here being counted. I will be counted against all those things. As that member reminds me it is no fun sitting in front of the hikoi going around the hui and getting chastised for it and knowing that my whanau name will be alongside this. But at least I will stand up and with pride say that it is the right thing to do at the right time. In contemporary times this is the way to go forward.  
My friend here talked about Churchillian issues. This is Herculean; it is enormous. We have made the right decision. My learned friend the chairman of the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee 
and those who were honest enough to stand the heat took it on the chin. We will be here and we will be counted along with New Zealand First. I am really thankful that those members have come in at this stage to help us finish passing the legislation. I respect that so kia ora to them. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: You’re desperate! 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: If we are desperate then I do not know what it is like to be polling at 1 percent. We know where we are. I understand if the member translates that into desperateness. 
The Resource Management Act is a fascinating thing. Where I come from people could dig a long drop. That is the fascinating thing. A lot of our young people do not even know what a long drop is anymore. People did not have to go to the council and ask for permission; they dug the hole they moved the toilet and they had it there. Now they have to go to the council and ask: “Can I please build a long drop?”. What a load of nonsense! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 That was a very interesting speech from the Minister of Maori Affairs. I am very pleased that he is proud of what he sees as his achievements. That is important in Parliament. We as a nation want our Minister of Maori Affairs to do well but he cannot be the judge of the outcome. The people in our democracy will judge that outcome. His people will weigh up the merits of what they think he has delivered on the one hand and what he has cost them on the other hand. When every iwi that came to the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee gave a very clear position of what they expected when hui after hui around the country—I was at the first one the Hauraki declaration and the Minister was there too—gave a very clear message he did not listen. He and most of the Maori Labour caucus members did not listen. Their people will judge them for that. Their constituents will judge them for that. That is the great advantage of our open democracy. It is no good members coming here proclaiming their achievements beating their chests and saying how great they are. It is the people who will make that judgment. I believe they will judge the Minister of Maori Affairs very harshly because he has certainly been found wanting. 
 The comment has been made in this debate that the Government was between a rock and a hard place. Those members are trying to say that they had no choice. That is simply not so. The Government had numerous alternative options it could have proceeded with that would have delivered a far more harmonious outcome for this country. Let us review some of those options. Firstly if the Government was not happy with the Court of Appeal judgment it could have appealed. It was a very clear judgment that said in terms of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act which was passed by the National Government in 1993 the right for the Maori Land Court with extended jurisdiction to issue title over the foreshore and seabed to Maori applicants did exist—possibly in rare and remote instances. So it was not as if there was a great big threat. The judgment said that it may exist based on customary rights and customary title.  
What the Government could have done if it believed in due process—and there were two options actually with due process—was appeal that decision to the Privy Council. Did it? No it did not. Why? Because the Government was so determined to do away with the Privy Council—there was a lot of rhetoric about doing away with the Privy Council—it could not bear the shame and embarrassment of taking a case to the Privy Council. So it did not pursue that option. The Government claims that it was surprised by the Court of Appeal decision. That claim does not stand up to scrutiny either. Judge HetaHingston had made his decision on the Marlborough case—the NgatiApa case—some 5 or 6 years earlier. It had been running through all the court processes in the High Court and the Court of Appeal and the Government knew it was coming. Was it so arrogant that it just assumed it would win even though the initial decision clearly said that there was serious doubt? Yes the Government was that arrogant and when it received that decision what did it do? It just cancelled due process before our courts. That is a very serious issue. The Government did not even take it to the Privy Council. Perhaps it should at least have taken that step but it did not do that.  
So the Government could have taken the case to the Privy Council. Alternatively it could have just said: “Yes let’s look at this. What sorts of situations are we talking about where property rights might exist on the foreshore and seabed based on customary title?”. Those situations would be rare and remote. If the Government wanted to acknowledge that that was the due process but in the public good then chose to expropriate that that is always a Government’s right. Governments expropriate private property all the time and they always have. We have a Public Works Act mostly for good reason—not always but mostly—but of course the Government has to pay compensation. That would have been a due process. If the Government had gone through the courts and found that yes indeed based on customary title a very few clear Maori titles did exist the Government could have stumped up. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 What a pleasure it is to follow a member like Ken Shirley! He is erudite he is intelligent and he is totally wrong when he comes to interpreting this legislation. What an interesting debate members have had. In this House there are the two extremes yet neither leader of those parties has taken a call. It is very important that the leader of the National Party has not come and taken a call and the leader of the Maori Party has not taken a call either. Both members have sat very very quietly. However I will go back to the title.  
A title should always leave the reader in no doubt as to what this legislation is about and this title definitely leaves the reader in no doubt. This bill sets out to vest ownership of the foreshore and the seabed in the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders and it protects customary rights for everyone. This legislation achieves what New Zealand First set out as our position in June last year. It is fair to all New Zealanders irrespective of race and all are treated equally before the law—not like some of the speeches we have heard here today and last night.  
Nobody is disadvantaged with this legislation and Maori have lost nothing. This new law confirms what everybody has already believed—that the Crown owns the foreshore and the seabed and the existing situation is exactly how it should be. It means that the foreshore and seabed can never be sold off to anybody. It is really important too that the customary rights of all New Zealanders are protected. That is significant and only New Zealand First has pushed for that. The process is outlined to ensure that that is very clear. This legislation ensures that all New Zealanders are treated equally. There has been a lot of grandstanding over this particular legislation and that is really sad. The other parties should put aside their perceived differences and act in the interests of all New Zealanders. By the time the Christmas and the New Year holidays come all New Zealanders will still be enjoying the beaches and the sea with their children and their families— 
Hon Member 
: And their grandchildren. 
BARBARA STEWART 
: —and their grandchildren—in exactly the same way that we have done for many many years and they will be wondering what all the fuss was about. We will be supporting this legislation totally and we cannot see what all that fuss is about. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. We are interested to know what the proportion situation is with regard to speeches at the present time. We know that the Chair keeps good records. It is of interest to us because we have noticed that normally after this period of time the Government starts moving closure motions. But for some reason it has been strangely silent although it has put up two members it would appear to filibuster its own bill. Can you give us an indication of how many—[ 
Interruption 
]  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I remind the member that the member on his feet is raising a point of order. There will be silence. [ 
Interruption 
] Does the member want to speak to the point of order? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I have not finished. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has made his point. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: No I have not made my point. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I say to Mr Brownlee that I have ruled that he has made his point. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I understand the member’s point of order to be that he wants to know when the Government will move the closure motion—despite the fact that those members were going to fight this with all the fibre of their being. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No—  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I am signifying that we have members who are yet to speak.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: What I would say to the member is that there are many criteria the Chairperson takes into account. One of them is obviously proportionality. That will be dealt with as it is always dealt with—in a proper and fair way. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I have answered the member’s question. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Yes you have—I accept that and that is fine. I am asking for further clarification. It is interesting to know whether that proportionality or the decisions of the Chair are affected by the ongoing contributions from the Government. It was surprising to us that having spoken very early in this part the Hon Parekura Horomia just two speeches ago decided to give another contribution that brought in I have to say quite new material. I want to know whether the opportunity to respond to that in a proportionate way will be part of the Chair’s consideration.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I have already answered the question. It is taken into account. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I want to respond to the Minister of Maori Affairs and to some of the outburst that he gave members just before. He spoke about his deep care and concern for Maori and about his Maori caucus’s fearless advocation on behalf of Maori.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Advocacy. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Well advocacy then—I thank Mr Peters. In a former life Mr Peters was a primary school teacher. He has made little progress. We know about those primary school teachers. They always gave that stuck-up snooty look to old technical teachers like me.  
As for the Labour Party everyone knows that it has always hated the worker. It has always despised the worker and I cannot help thinking that that same attitude came through towards Maori in the speech of the Minister of Maori Affairs. When I look at this bill I see the extraordinary constraints that the Government has put round Maori when it comes to customary rights. I am moved to say— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Make up your mind. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: —that the only people in this country—I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. Firstly where is the clock? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Continue with the point of order. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: If a person takes a point of order it should not come off that person’s allocated speaking time. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: 
We attend to that. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I do hope you will listen very very carefully to some of the comments made in interjections. I am particularly sensitive about this because of my ejection from the Chamber yesterday over exactly this sort of issue. I do not want to have to go through the same performance to highlight some of the extreme bad manners being exhibited by other members in this Chamber—particularly members who know that they are skating on thin ice have weak arguments and have very little else to offer the Committee.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I thank the member for his point of order. There have been lots of interjections on both sides of the Chamber. Members have indicated that they want a robust debate and I will rule accordingly.  
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I am taking a very simple position. We notice that in this bill there is now a huge court process around the establishment of customary rights. Something National is very proud of is that under the National Government customary rights were those that were 
accepted to be so because they were demonstrated to be so. We included those in treaty settlements without any difficulty and I cannot see why Maori now have to go through this extraordinary proof process around customary rights.  
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Don’t have to. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I can see Dover Samuels scratching his head and saying that it is all right and that they do not have to. Maori cannot have those rights recognised if they do not do that. I think the problem with this bill is firstly that it is unfair to most New Zealanders and is therefore racist. It is racist on two counts. It apparently makes Maori the only people in this country who can have customary rights but it then states that they can have those rights only if they are ratified by a court. For the rest of us there is 
this sham process available that I dare say will never be used successfully—and the Government knows that.  
Going around telling New Zealanders that it has protected the foreshore and seabed in perpetuity is also a gross misrepresentation of the actual truth in this bill. Under clauses 112 and 115 the Government reserves for itself the absolute right to dispose of the seabed and foreshore as it sees fit. 
The worst thing is that the Government has said that it trusts the public’s interest in the foreshore and seabed being in the hands of the Minister of Conservation—and everyone knows that that means it will be in the hands of the Director-General of Conservation. He is an unelected public official who anonymously goes about administering at this stage over a third of this country’s land mass. When we add in this new requirement to look after the seabed and foreshore it is a very substantial increase on that amount. That is just plain unacceptable.  
We are seeing from the Minister of Maori Affairs this pathetic cry of how well the Government has done for Maori. We are in some of New Zealand’s best economic times and that is entirely due to the National Government of the late 1990s. We now have low Maori unemployment 
;  
well is that not just a core requirement of politicians?  
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Concede it! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I ask Mr Horomia to take another call. I bet he will not. There is not a chance. He will stay seated on his backside. [ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. That was an extraordinary outburst from the other side of the Chamber. Some of what the Minister of Maori Affairs was saying to me was personally very offensive. Much as the Prime Minister was deeply hurt by the Nuremburg comment the other day I was too of course. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has taken offence. I ask Mr Horomia to stand withdraw and apologise for that remark. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I have been sitting here just pondering on the path that this legislation has taken over the past 18 months finally to get to this point. It occurs to me that the real crime the greatest hoax the biggest fraud the most unforgivable act of deception because it misled because it promoted a falsity that created a mirage of ownership and because it tantalised the most vulnerable and the most impoverished with a promise of unlimited wealth and that was fuelled by underlying greed wrapped in a pretence of tikanga and carried on a wave of emotion was the promotion of the lie that Maori owned the foreshore and the seabed. Why does that vex me so? Because from that falsity that misrepresentation has been born a festering broth that has incited racism from Maori and toward Maori that does New Zealand no good whatsoever. 
Perhaps the thing that hurts the most is that it will all sadly end in tears. It may well be that it takes 3 years for some of my extended whanaunga to come to the final realisation that the belief the trust and the faith that they have placed in the gravy train conductors of the Maori Party the 21st century missionaries of the United Future party and the intergalactic travellers of the Green Party have led them totally up the garden path. I have to say that probably some of the most— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I will remind members again to be silent when a point of order is being heard. 
Metiria 
Turei 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I take personal offence at being described as “intergalactic” by that member in his speech and I ask that he be required to withdraw and apologise for that offensive derogatory remark. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I think we are starting to get into some difficulty. This is a robust Chamber. There are comments that are offensive which we all sometimes make but there is also a level of language that is representative of people’s description of what they think people’s positions and views are. Describing somebody in terms of being an intergalactic traveller suggests he or she is out in some different area of the ether. Whether or not one regards it as offensive I do not think one can make a case in this House that it is an offensive remark of the sort that requires a withdrawal and apology. We in this Parliament will find ourselves with the shortest  
Oxford Dictionary 
 in the world if we are not careful. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I think Dr Cullen is correct and we have had some marginal calls at times and Mr Prebble certainly pointed that out yesterday. I really do not think that that comment is one that requires a withdrawal. 
RON MARK 
: Thank you Madam Chairperson and thank you Dr Cullen for your wisdom. I have to say that many of my whanaunga are going to wake up in 3 years’ time. It may well be that the Maori Party and even perhaps the Green Party have more representatives here in this House after this next election. That may well be the case. But I predict that the realisation will come home to all New Zealanders after they have had their holidays in the sun on beaches and rocky foreshores up and down the country over the next few months that much of what they have been hearing is lies deception and falsity. We as a nation will thank the wisdom the fortitude and the determination of the two parties involved who brought this legislation to the House. 
I say to my colleagues in the National Party that I heard all their arguments here. They complained that there were too many words in the bill that it had too many pages that it was too long and too difficult— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I waited for a minute. The member used the word “lies” and I hoped he was not referring to any member in this Chamber because that would be disorderly but his subsequent words gave the very clear impression that that expression had been aimed in the direction of members. If so I believe that offence could be taken and the member should be asked to withdraw. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I certainly did not take that remark in that context. It was taken in the context of the member’s description of the legislation. I listened very carefully. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I just ask for consistency because only yesterday in the Chamber—and I have the  
Hansard 
 in front of me—you ruled the word “fib” out of order. That was not said in respect of anybody else. You said it was an inappropriate word. Can you explain to me why when a National member uses the word “fib” it is ruled out of order and I am required to withdraw but when Mr Ron Mark used the word “lies” because he happens to be supporting the— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I will explain in simple terms to the member. Very simply if a member uses that term in relation to another member it will be ruled out. If a member uses it in relation to legislation as it has been used throughout the debate—and that has been clarified several times—it is perfectly in order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Is it a new point of order? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes it is. I need you to clarify for us whether a member of the National Party talking about the legislation and the way it is being presented and suggesting that there are fibs being told is different from a member of the New Zealand First Party which supports the bill saying that the Opposition has at some points represented the bill in a way that could be construed as lies. It is the same thing. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The distinction is a very simple one. It is a question of who is telling the fibs. If it is a member of this House then the accusation is out of order. I listened to Mr Mark very carefully and what he said was not in the context of members of the House. If it had been it would clearly have been out of order. The comment yesterday was in fact in the context of members of the House but in any case it cannot be relitigated now—it is in the past. I suggest therefore that the rule is quite clear.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Ron Mark referred to lies and other issues then said he now wanted to talk to his colleagues in the National Party which clearly bisected what he was saying before from what he was about to say. They heard that. But my point of order is that I am sick and tired of the number of points of order being raised by this petulant National Party time after time that are without any merit whatsoever. I have never seen such juvenile behaviour in my whole time in Parliament. Those members sit over there not knowing the Standing Orders or what is right or fair and raise countless points of order when we are talking. We are totally sick of it. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Madam Chair I think I indicated to you in the first place that I had waited because I thought there was some doubt as to whether there was a reference to members. Far be it from me to offer you guidance but I think the normal course in such circumstances has been for presiding officers to ask the member whether he or she was referring to members of the House and if an assurance is given that he or she was not then that is accepted. I was hoping that Mr Mark was not referring to a member of the House. If you were to avail yourself of that facility Madam Chair I am sure Mr Mark could put the matter right for us.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Mr Mark had indicated to me but that was not required as I had heard it very clearly. I say to Mr Peters on his contribution to the point of order that yes this has been a robust debate and yes there have been a lot of unnecessary calls for points of order that have not been points of order. 
RON MARK 
: Given the rather unacceptable and persistent interdictions on my speech which was clearly hitting a raw nerve in some areas I seek leave that my time be restarted.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There is not. 
RON MARK 
: Thank you and I thank members. I have to say that that is the sort of thing one gets when one is rudderless—when one pledges to come and fight a piece of legislation with every sinew of one’s soul bones and heart yet sits in the Chamber and does not take one call. In my time in the military we always taught people a few things and they have been demonstrated by the courage and fortitude behind the passage of this legislation: firstly that one leads by example; secondly that one does not ask soldiers to do anything that one is not prepared to do oneself; and thirdly that one always puts one’s troops first and encounters the most dangerous situations with them for them by them and at precisely the same time that combat has been engaged. I have to say that the reason that certain parties in this House lose their way get distracted and end up acting like petulant little schoolboys is that they do not have a leader. I have only one plea for the former great National Party and that is to “Bring back Bill!”—“Bring back Bill!”. I know that had Bill English been sitting in that chair he would have fought this legislation tooth and nail down to the wire with every sinew every fibre and every drop of blood in his body. But that is not what we have seen here in the last couple of days is it? 
To my colleagues on my left—who are normally politically speaking on the right—ACT I say that I am impressed. The most consistent competent argument and debate through these many hours in opposition to the bill has come from the ACT party. But the tragedy is that that is irrelevant because ACT will not be here next year. 
Then I come to my dearly beloved whanaunga in the Maori Party. There was not one sound syllable utterance murmur or mutter from that great party which came to this House with placards and banners waving and flying in the wind and with 10-foot photographs held high. It was going to fight the bill all the way to its doomy gloomy grave. Not a sound not a mutter not a murmur not a syllable has passed through its member’s lips and those lips are being paid $100000 a year for doing zilch—nothing. Well done! 
Turning to the United Future party and the Greens I ask them to spare us the indignity. Maori have put up with and tolerated the socialist rantings and the favours of missionaries for decades and decades—for 200 years. We do not need any more. The missionaries have had their day. They should go to Africa and find some indigenous people who need their help because we do not. Maori are quite capable of articulating for themselves their own views and deciding among themselves what they want. What they want is what is right for all New Zealanders and they do not want to be misled they do not want to have their hands held they do not want warm fuzzies and cuddlies and they certainly do not need to communicate with outer space on that frequency any more. 
 I am going to deal with a couple of inconsistencies and some of the arguments put up by my National Party friends. I have heard Dr Nick Smith’s arguments regarding access and I take on board his comments that this issue has affected him in his Nelson area. But I have never heard a word about the travesty that has been going on in Riversdale ever since I was 11 years old. Today that iron fence that goes right down into the breakers down to the low-tide mark that is made out of railway irons and that was owned and put up by Mr Meredith still stands there in testament to as a monument to the days when he used to stand on that beach on that foreshore and stop us Maori and Pakeha from gathering kai moana off that beach. There has not been a word said against him! 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
:  
It is sobering to reflect on how it is that we are debating the Foreshore and Seabed Bill because it arises out of judicial activism of the Court of Appeal. If the Court of Appeal had followed the course that has been generally followed for judges who seek substantive law change then these issues that have confronted us in urgency for the last 2 days would never have arisen. What has happened in the past where the judges have found that the law is unsatisfactory is that they have quite simply said that the law requires change and that that is a matter for the legislature. But they chose not to exercise that option and that is why with others I have expressed doubt about the wisdom of the new Supreme Court. The new court gives the judges the possibility of yielding to the temptation of judicial creativity. The law had been settled and well known for a number of years. It was crystal clear that the Crown owned the foreshore and the seabed.  
The Court of Appeal sought to meddle in that unwisely—very unwisely with the benefit of hindsight because it has plunged this House and this Committee into turmoil for almost 2½ years. So I say to members that the outcome of a process that we have embarked upon with this bill will be to raise the expectations both of Maori and non-Maori in such a way that those hopes will certainly not be realised—will certainly be dashed.  
Why do I say that? Well one looks at the threshold tests in Part 3 which we have debated clause by clause in the Committee stage. One looks at Part 4 which reeks of political correctness. This process that the Government has set in Part 4 to allow non-Maori groups to assert claims for customary rights is impossible. It is impossible of realisation. That is why as we talk about the title—the “Foreshore and Seabed Bill”—I suggest that it would be better named the “Floor Show and Seabed Bill.” because it is on any view a fiasco.  
Customary rights should have been recognised as they have been in the context of Treaty of Waitangi settlements. They should not be the subject of a process where the courts of record have to decide tricky and near-impossible issues of tikanga Maori against the background of showing uninterrupted possession since 1840. It is a wholly unsatisfactory circumstance. It has also in this Chamber pitted Maori against non-Maori. That is doubly unfortunate for no one should deny the strength and the need to preserve Maori culture and language. But we have moved on from that. We have moved on to a position of seeking to codify property rights.  
I listened with interest to what the chairman of the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee Russell Fairbrother had to say on that issue. He saw this bill as simply being about the codifying of property rights. But it is far more than that. The codification process is not a process that will provide certainty. It will instead provide I think for all of us a degree of division that should surely have been avoided. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Perhaps we might like to call this bill the “Anti-democracy Bill” because if there has been one atrocity committed by the Government in the last 6-8 months or even 18 months it is that the democratic process has been fundamentally undermined by everything that it has done to try to justify its enactment of unjust confiscatory legislation. First the Government went through a process of consultation hui. I went to a large number of those hui and I saw Michael Cullen treat those people who attended those hui—those large numbers of Maori who travelled great distances to get there—with absolute disdain. He told them that they were effectively ignorant and that their problem with Government policy was because they just did not understand. That is right. Michael Cullen says that Maori just do not get it because we do not know enough about it. He hides behind these great legal principles in trying to justify this wrongful action—in the face of the continual statements from kuia and kaumatua during the hui process that this was wrong.  
We remembered the previous confiscation. We have seen this all before. We know exactly what this is and we do not want to see it again in the 21st century. But Michael Cullen refused to understand and refused to acknowledge their experience and instead took an arrogant and paternalistic attitude.  
Then of course we had Trevor Mallard at one of the hui in Taranaki—one of the places where the worst atrocities in this country have been committed against Maori—telling them that it is their own fault—like the Minister of Maori Affairs—that Maori sell off their land and they need to be protected from themselves. It is an arrogant assumption that somehow we are still natives we are still savages and undeveloped cannot be responsible for our own assets and own lands and we cannot be responsible for the good of the nation.  
In the face of all of the generosity that Maori have expressed over the last 150 years and the amount of natural heritage that Maori have contributed to this country as a whole in that state of generosity Trevor Mallard stood there and told these people in Taranaki that it was their own fault.  
Then we went into the select committee process which again was an incredible farce. It was amazing that 4000 people can make submissions and 2000 of them wanted to be heard yet this Government along with New Zealand First which trails behind obediently doing exactly as it is told refused to allow the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee the time that it needed to hear those submissions. Two thousand people asked to be heard because they had something to contribute to the democratic process of this nation. They were not even written to. They had no response from the select committee because the Government and New Zealand First members refused to allow them to be written to and thanked for their efforts to contribute to this country’s democratic process. They did not even get a response.  
Of those 2000 submitters 200-odd got heard. At one point we had six iwi from the west coast of the North Island from Taranaki all the way down to Otaki who travelled to Wellington to be heard by the select committee and what did they get? They got 20 minutes between six iwi to hear their very real concerns as coastal people to whom this legislation has a direct effect on their lives. The select committee would not even give them the time to be heard individually. There was 20 minutes between six iwi and on and on it went. 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 Te tiamana o Ngati Kahungunu iwi nau mai haere mai tena koe tena koe tena koe. 
[ 
To the chairman of the Ngati Kahungunu people welcome welcome and greetings to you 
.]  
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
EDWIN PERRY 
: I know this is a wide-ranging debate and I shall touch on various issues with regard to the legislation. Firstly I shall talk about access. A lot of comments have been made to the effect that Maori will stop people from going to the beach this summer. I want to enlighten everybody by saying that in the Wairarapa that is not the case. It has not been the case. A number of Pakeha have come to my office to tell me that they have been stopped from going to the beach by their own people. Maori have also been stopped from going to the beach. An example of that is at Riversdale where I own a beach house. Our people were virtually conned out of some land there. Quite frankly a reserve was taken from them by using measures such as telling them that the land would be no good to develop. What happened was that the local farmer and the county council at the time colluded and bought the property off our people. Today half-million dollar properties are on that land. I talk about a prime piece of coastal land that is now worth a lot of money. Sure maybe some Maori may stop people from going to the beach this summer. However when Mahara Okeroa visits my moana this summer we will still drive down the beach and enjoy it as every other New Zealander would. I invite members from the National Party the ACT party the Green Party and my whanaunga MetiriaTurei from Papawai to experience the true kaitiakitanga put into this legislation by New Zealand First.  
I shall talk briefly about the customary rights of my hapu NgaiTumapuhiaarangi on the Wairarapa coast. A USA motivational speaker said at one stage: “Your time has come.” I believe that our hapu’s time has come to identify its customary right to the coastline within its boundary lines which is from the Whareama river to the Awhea river on the Wairarapa coast. What will my hapu have to do in order to be able to identify its customary rights or its claim to that piece of coastline? First it will have to put its claim to the Maori Land Court and then to the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Maori Affairs. Once it is validated the hapu will then have the customary right to that piece of coastline. I say to the Maori people that the Marine Reserves Bill sits somewhere gathering dust in the bowels of this building. But with the passing of this legislation our hapu will be able to claim its customary rights to the coastal boundary so now it will be able to quite easily negotiate the placing of marine reserves on a level playing field. Prior to this legislation going through the hapu really had an airy-fairy agreement for that to happen.  
I shall talk quickly about who started this issue. How did it start? Obviously it started in the Marlborough Sounds where there were 19 proposals from an iwi to gain access for mussel farming. In 1991 National included wahi tapu in the Resource Management Act as well—that allowed that to happen. In 1993 National passed the Act that enabled Maori to get fee simple title and ACT wants that to be kept in. Why? Because it wants to sell the foreshore and seabed off. That is no different from what National will do if it gets its hands on them. I tell Mr McCully that one good thing in this agreement is that New Zealand First has made it quite clear that that land will never be sold. I am happy about that.  
Here is a good one for the National Party. Over the last 18 months this bill went through the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee. What did National Party members say? They said that with Crown ownership and customary rights for Maori Maori did not get anything—Maori got nothing. What do they say now? There is a racial slur on this issue now that those members say Maori are getting everything. What is the problem with National? It has to make up its mind what it is doing. I can tell the National Party what a number of its members in the Wairarapa are saying. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I shall talk about the consistency of political parties’ positions on the foreshore and seabed issue. First I shall start with the Labour Party. The Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Michael Cullen has claimed that the Labour Party believes in Crown ownership for all New Zealanders and that access is guaranteed. Of course we on the Opposition side of the Chamber know that that is not a correct description of what the bill contains. We know that the way that was done was by buying off the Maori members of the Labour caucus with all kinds of derogations territorial customary rights orders customary rights orders provisions in the Resource Management Act and of course the treaty settlement provisions. I guess we will find out shortly that Nanaia Mahuta’s vote has been bought on the fact that Tainui will be getting title to the west coast harbours—just like the case of Lake Rotorua. National has drawn a line in the sand on this issue and we believe in a single simple principle. For the area of the public domain—if one will—that we all use we believe in Crown ownership on behalf of all New Zealanders. It should not be sold but should be kept for the public enjoyment of all New Zealanders irrespective of race.  
I guess that Labour at least has been honest. It has admitted its inconsistencies. On the other hand New Zealand First simply does not know that it is being inconsistent. New Zealand First goes up and down the country and makes a virtue of the fact that it says it believes in one law for all. I suppose that is true to the extent that this Parliament will be passing a single document so that all this law will be contained in a single Act. The trouble is that that Act will contain two separate laws: one for New Zealanders in general Maori and non-Maori alike and then a subset for Maori alone. How can that possibly meet the test of one law for all New Zealanders? I have to go through that issue because there was a simple approach. In fact the Prime Minister had it right 18 months ago as indeed did the Minister of Justice. Their initial reaction was in fact the correct reaction. It was to provide a confirmatory statute that would have stated Crown ownership—absolute ownership—on behalf of all New Zealanders. National said that it would support that.  
That was the Government’s initial reaction. It was only after the reaction of the Maori caucus to that position that it was changed. So the legislation went from a simple 1 or 2-page confirmatory bill which is what the Prime Minister had wanted to a 117-clause bill that provides Crown ownership territorial customary rights Maori reserves customary rights to be determined by the Maori Land Court customary rights before the High Court amendments to the Resource Management Act and of course specific clauses for treaty settlements. There are so many exceptions to the general principle of Crown ownership on behalf of all New Zealanders that that is now simply a sham.  
The Labour Government is quite happy with that—it is proud of it. On the other hand the New Zealand First Party has been fundamentally duped. When I hear Mr Mark and Mr Perry or indeed the leader of New Zealand First say that they have fixed the problem I know they have not. They have wrecked the law for New Zealanders. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Who broke it? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Those guys broke it by passing this law. New Zealand First has broken the law. That is what it has done—it has broken the law. I am sick and tired of hearing its members’ boasts which are based on a fundamental fallacy that they believe in one law for all. Their vote today will totally vacate that idea.  
I just want to pass on one point to members. We talked about customary rights and it is in our minority report. They are referred to in the existing legislation as mataitai and taiapure under the Fisheries Act 1996. We have always said that it is around those vehicles that one can protect customary rights as well as through the treaty settlements. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I start by paying a special tribute to my colleague Dail Jones because I believe he has done a tremendous job in working on the details of this legislation. When New Zealanders go to the beach this Christmas and sunbathe on the beach they will know that New Zealand First has secured that activity for New Zealanders for the rest of their lives and for the next generation. When New Zealanders collect tuatua from Tokerau Beach they will know that New Zealand First has secured that activity for future generations. When grandparents are down on the beach building sandcastles with their grandchildren they will know that those grandchildren’s grandchildren will be able to carry out that same activity—it will be uninterrupted—because of the stand that New Zealand First has taken with the Government on this issue.  
I want to talk about New Zealand First’s position since the Court of Appeal ruling. When that judgment was made we recognised that it was momentous and would have huge implications for New Zealand and its future. So firstly we made a statement of our position. We said that we believed that the foreshore and seabed should be secured for all New Zealanders in the ownership of the Crown but that customary rights mechanisms should be in place to enable those rights to be applied. I say to the National members that those customary rights derive from common law which is the “one law for all” that was brought into this country in 1840. The National members want to have one law for all but when the results of the application of the principle of one law for all do not suit them they do not want it—they want some other law. Customary rights come from common law rights and we need to ensure that within the mechanism of the law a way is found to recognise them.  
Second after the Court of Appeal ruling we made a deliberate decision to shut up. I defy anybody to find any statement made by a New Zealand First member from that time onwards because we realised that the situation had the potential to inflame the nation—which it did—if people were making statements that were incorrect. There has never been an issue that has been so poorly articulated by the media as this particular issue was. We said nothing because we knew that to say something wrong would inflame the situation. That was unlike a certain other party which made a certain speech that set out deliberately to divide this nation. That speech made at Orewa by the leader of the National Party set out to divide this nation. New Zealand First said no that was not the way we would go. We did our homework. We really did some work on the issue. I have to say that reading the appeal court judgment—and I doubt whether many MPs actually did that—was hard yacker for me. Some of the legal concepts in there were unusual for us and I had to go back to it and back to it asking myself what it was actually stating.  
What that judgment stated was that the law that was left for us for all New Zealanders by National actually meant that Oriental Bay could be sold into foreign ownership.  
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Nonsense! 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: It could be sold into foreign ownership; that is the law as it stands right here today. We could have had to go down and pay in order to go on to our beaches in New Zealand. Certainly something had to be done to fix that up. The first point is that Labour came to us and asked us whether we would help it to fix that situation and we said yes. The other point is that we must ask ourselves who broke it in the first place. National broke it. That is why we have had to come along and fix it. The law that was left behind by National is a law that allows for the alienation of the foreshore and seabed. I ask the Minister in the chair Dr Cullen whether I am right. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That’s right. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: That is what stands at the moment. I cannot understand how National members can go out to the people of New Zealand and say they oppose a bill that will overcome that situation which is intolerable to most if not all New Zealanders.  
There is the point about people like myself not having the same degree of customary right as the indigenous people of New Zealand. I blame that on my ancestors because they came to New Zealand. If they had stayed in Ireland then I would have the same degree of customary right there as Maori people have in New Zealand. But actually I am glad my ancestors forsook some of that customary right back in Ireland and came to New Zealand because I would far rather be a citizen of New Zealand than of Ireland. We can still go and visit Ireland and it is nice to listen to the music. But the fact that has to be recognised is that customary rights come with age. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 The Foreshore and Seabed Bill is one of those pieces of legislation that will raise incredibly the expectations of Maori only to see them dashed. It is appropriate in this call and I hope in the calls I will have as we move into the very late afternoon to talk briefly about the concept of what it is to be a Maori. It is not an issue that is easy to talk about; it is the sort of issue that strongly stirs people like Dover Samuels. But if we look at our community today we see it as one that is substantially intermingled and intermixed. 
In a constitutional setting the starting point—maybe the finishing point too—is the definition of Maori in the Electoral Act. “Maori” means a person of the Maori race of New Zealand and includes any descendant of such a person. I make the point that that definition was not always the definition. It is a definition from legislation passed in 1993. 
Prior to 1986 census definitions were based much more obviously on a concept of ancestry or biological make-up. In general terms the Maori population was defined as those with half or more Maori blood. That was the definition of Maori and Parliament enacted legislation to that effect. One such example is the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1951 and at least in the period from 1951 to 1995 that was the law. The Maori population was defined as those with half or more Maori blood and at the 1981 census which I understand is the census from which most recent figures were kept only 6.9 percent of the population had half or more Maori blood. 
I suspect that the number of people now who can properly claim to be Maori in terms of the biological definition is perhaps in the order of 2 percent. What is the significance of that? We have heard from people like John Tamihere— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Who is your doctor? 
RICHARD WORTH 
: I will talk about my doctor in a moment—that Maori in the context of this bill seek to lay claim to perhaps 10 percent of the coastline. So 2 percent of the people are laying claim to 10 percent of the coastline; where is the justice in that?  
Some of the more noisy claimants for bounty have very strong non-Maori heritage. There are many examples in this Parliament. John Tamihere might be one. The Hon Tariana Turia is probably a really good example with her American father. What the Government is doing and what should be of concern to us all— 
Tariana Turia 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I do not think it is for the member on his feet to be defining whakapapa that he knows nothing about. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: Speaking to the point of order Madam Chairperson I point out that that is obviously a debating point and not a point of order. It is an abuse of the process of the Committee to interrupt a member’s speech.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is quite correct; that is not a point of order. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: So where does the Foreshore and Seabed Bill take us? It is better described as the “Floorshow and Seabed Bill” because an absolute farce is being played out in a number of its parts. 
In Part 4 rights are given to non-Maori people Caucasian or European somehow to advance claims for customary title. How will they do that? I challenge Russell Fairbrother the chairman of the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee to stand and explain how any group could possibly fit within the statutory test set in that part. The part has been deliberately designed to put up a smokescreen—a real smoke and mirrors deal—with no real possibility of such groups establishing those claims. 
I conclude as I started by saying that we should be truly concerned about this legislation. It has been rushed through Parliament. It has heightened Maori expectations and non-Maori resentment will continue to grow. 
If I have the leave of the House I am happy to talk about my doctorate and the processes that led to that award. I so seek leave. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is seeking leave for an extension of his speech. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
:  
All New Zealanders can go down to the beach this summer when this legislation has passed knowing that they will have no problems. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Even Arsenal supporters. 
PETER BROWN 
: Even Arsenal supporters can go down to the beach and wave the flag for the “Gunners” particularly after they have thumped Spurs 5-4. As a result of this legislation New Zealanders will sit on the beach enjoying their barbecues without this seabed and foreshore issue hanging over them. New Zealand First is exceedingly pleased that this legislation is about to pass. It has largely occurred because this House has gone into urgency. I have to say though I wonder why we went into urgency in that we will finish this afternoon earlier than normal. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I say to the member that we believed National Party members when they said they would fight this bill with every breath in their bodies. We actually believed them. But I say to the member who wants to keep interjecting that the more he goes along that line the more embarrassed he will become. I point out to this Committee that usually the Government does not take terribly many calls when the House goes into urgency. It is usually only Opposition members who speak. Had that been the case with this bill—no calls from the Government and no calls from New Zealand First to support it—we would probably have finished last night. I can say that the National Party has been hot air and hot wind—but not much of it. 
There have been some snipes and I can hear a few now. I personally regret that the leader of the National Party has not seen fit to take a call in this debate. There is a particular reason why the Leader of the Opposition should have taken a call. He has a very calming influence over this House. The last major speech he made in this House on a social issue was exceedingly calming I can tell members. I say to members that from time to time the National Party could have done with a bit of calming influence. 
Tariana Turia has interjected quite a few times in this debate. She went to the Business Committee and sought an additional call and I think every party supported that. But I had not heard one syllable from her officially through the microphone until she took a point of order a little while ago. Why does the member not take a call? She supposedly represents a lot of Maori people and she has not taken one call in the Committee stage of this bill where possibly she could have had some influence. 
I would like to refer to United Future. That party I believe is fairly close to supporting this bill and I am disappointed that it could not move that little bit closer. I think United Future’s opposition is hanging on the thread that we did not recognise the concept of public domain. I tell United Future members to go and ask the public what the words “public domain” mean to them. If they ask 20 people they will get 20 different answers. If they ask any New Zealander what Crown ownership means they will get one answer that everybody understands and everybody believes in. I am absolutely proud and delighted that my colleagues in New Zealand First supported the Labour Party Government in having Crown ownership thoroughly recognised. 
I say to National Party members that I have listened to all their public utterances and their statements and I have come to the conclusion that they like this bill very much but their pride will not let them vote for it. Pride has got in the way of their doing the right thing by all New Zealanders. 
If I do have one disappointment about the bill and about the tone of this debate it is that it has from time to time tried to divide this nation—Maori and non-Maori. I say to people and I say this with some sincerity that if they think we will bridge the differences between Maori and non-Maori by being patronising to Maori then they are wrong. If they think we will bridge the differences between Maori and non-Maori by taking a rebellious attitude as perhaps the Maori Party wants to take then they are wrong. If they think they will bridge the differences between Maori and non-Maori in this country by being superior then they are wrong.  
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 The longer this debate goes on the more ridiculous it is becoming. I agree with the member who spoke before me who said that New Zealanders understand Crown ownership. The point he has missed is that the majority of submitters did not like the concept of Crown ownership. They wanted public domain. 
Throughout this debate I have heard the Rt Hon Winston Peters announce on a number of occasions that this legislation is not about people going to the beach. We have heard again and again that this legislation will not affect anybody’s right to go to the beach. Now at the end of the debate we have heard the last two speakers from New Zealand First say that when people go to the beach this summer they can thank New Zealand First for it. I ask who is spreading half-truths around the country. Who is creating problems in the way that this debate has been handled? 
I understand that the Labour members are enjoying their time this afternoon sitting here and watching the National Party members stumble through this debate and that they are tempted to allow it to continue. But I would like to remind them that that would be at the expense of the New Zealand taxpayers and I urge someone on that side of the Chamber to please move a closure motion because this debate has gone on long enough.  
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Whip—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I take this point of order to advise the Committee more than anything that the Supreme Court has just brought down its decision in favour of the ACT party. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 42 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 6; Maori Party 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 50 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; United Future 8; ACT New Zealand 6; Maori Party 1. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That proposed new clause 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 50 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Proposed new clause 2 agreed to. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the Committee divide the bill into the Foreshore and Seabed Bill and the Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill 
 divided into Foreshore and Seabed Bill Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill 
 pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 305 
. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 In the circumstances a number of the ACT party caucus are across the road at the High Court and I therefore seek the leave of the Committee that notwithstanding Standing Order 156 we vote to our full strength of eight shortly to be nine. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave has been sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is not. Leave is granted. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. My apologies; I need to seek leave to correct the Green Party votes that have occurred since 2 p.m. this afternoon from nine votes to eight. My apologies for that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That will be corrected. I will read out the new results as soon as they are collated. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Procedure 
The bill was reported with amendment. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the report be adopted. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Report adopted. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call on Dr Cullen to move the third reading motion I advise members that I will put the questions on both bills separately at the end. 
Business of Select Committees 
Reporting Dates 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 This is a totally different matter which has to be resolved before the House rises. I seek leave for the time by which the Social Services Committee must finally report the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill to be extended to 31 March 2005. The bill is due to be reported back next week and the select committee members this morning I understand unanimously resolved that they would like more time to consider the bill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is not. 
Foreshore and Seabed Bill 
Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill 
Third Readings 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the Foreshore and Seabed Bill and the Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. I want to begin by thanking a number of people. I thank my caucus colleagues and particularly my Maori caucus colleagues for their support and their input throughout this process. I particularly thank my colleague Russell Fairbrother for his chairing of the select committee and Margaret Wilson for her continuous expert advice. Obviously I also want to thank New Zealand First members for their support and their careful consideration and advice on a range of issues. I thank United Future. In the end we could not arrive at an agreement but I think the differences between us were not very large at the end of day. I thank the officials who worked hard on this legislation particularly parliamentary counsel who were placed under enormous pressure in terms of some of the processes around amendments. 
This issue has challenged our sense of nationhood and our ability to encompass all the interests in our country. It has been a true test in this House of where parties stand in terms of New Zealand’s national interest and our ability to cohere as a nation. We need to understand some very simple things about this issue. 
The first is that it is about common law rights as they existed in 1840 at the assumption of sovereignty by the Crown. The fact that New Zealand did not become fully independently sovereign until 1947 is irrelevant in that respect. That is why that date is chosen and the fact that most of us who came since 1840 therefore do not qualify is I am afraid just our bad luck. 
Secondly it is about the Crown asserting clear ownership that having been thrown into some doubt in terms of its full meaning by the nature of the Court of Appeal decision in the case of NgatiApa and others. 
Thirdly the Court of Appeal did not say that Maori owned the foreshore and seabed even though that has been repeated any number of times on any number of media programmes that I have listened to and watched since that point. Indeed to quote the Chief Justice she said that before any particular group was likely to succeed in establishing customary land status there were a number of hurdles in fact in law to be crossed and I would assert that in my view those who won the NgatiApa decision were much less likely to cross those hurdles than some others in the country. So in fact it is much less likely that they will lose anything from this legislation than some others might possibly do. 
 Fourthly I think it is clear that this issue arose as an unintended consequence of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993. Those who were in the House at the time know full well that that Act was never meant to apply to the foreshore and seabed but was meant to apply to dry land. So in so far as customary land status could be acquired through that Act it was an unintended consequence. 
I have to say I have sat here now for a couple of days listening to National wax lyrical about the failings in laws every one of which that party’s Government passed: the Resource Management Act Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the Historic Places Trust Act of 1992 I think it was. So when we come to this House most parties are not saying that the process should be allowed to continue as it would have done without our changing the law. Even the Green Party says that we should have legislated to block off the possibility of private title in terms of freehold title and that we should have legislated in some form for access. Only the ACT party and the Maori Party have consistently stood for a clear position of allowing the process to go through. 
The territorial customary rights test in the legislation is high—as it should be under the law. What is in this legislation is not an invention of the common law test for territorial customary rights or aboriginal title; it is a codification in statute of the best expert advice we have had as to what those tests should be. In other words they are the very tests that the High Court should have had to apply if somebody had applied to that court under its inherent jurisdiction and the very tests in combination with the tikanga test that the Maori Land Court should have had to apply if there had been an application for customary land status. We have not imported anything new in that respect; we have tried as far as possible to reflect what the state of the law actually is. In New Zealand this is largely untested law because unlike Canada and Australia we have not proceeded through the common law jurisprudence in these matters in the past. That is why this is different. 
What the legislation does is remove the avenue of customary title. If we are to do that particularly in terms of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court then there must be redress available to those who could have obtained customary title. It is utterly wrong—as was suggested this morning and I will come back to that—that the inherent jurisdiction should be abolished without something else being put in its place. So what we have in the legislation are two options for a successful applicant group in that respect. The first is a foreshore and seabed reserve which is modelled very much upon sections 338 to 340 of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act—quite deliberately modelled in that respect. That reserve will enable the successful applicant group to exercise a high degree of influence over the management of that particular area and the coastal management plan that it draws up will have to be taken account of. Indeed more than that it will have to be given regard to in terms of the management plan of the regional authority. Secondly the applicant group can enter into direct negotiations with the Crown in terms of looking at redress which is not money as so often the National Party immediately assumes—that there could be only one form of redress that one could ever engage in. 
I think it is fair to say there will still be disappointment amongst many Maori at the passage of this legislation but that disappointment is based upon a misapprehension of the actual meaning of the law. I want to repeat this because it is so important: the Court of Appeal did not say that Maori owned the foreshore and seabed; it said that the status of customary land could be tested before the Maori Land Court but that there were very significant hurdles in the way of any area of land being recognised. Indeed I think the Chief Justice went somewhat further and indicated that it was likely that only relatively isolated and small areas of land would be encompassed. The fact that 10 percent of the land above the foreshore and seabed is owned by Maori is relevant to only one of the tests in terms of territorial customary rights within the legislation. 
The legislation does provide that non-Maori can test their rights in that respect as well. Here we have had the extraordinary argument that if we end up in the position where the people who at the end of the day get those rights recognised are Maori that makes it racist. That is a most extraordinary argument to put in place. It is rather like saying that the National Party caucus is racist because only one in 27 of its members is Maori. I would not make that claim at all; it is an irrelevant kind of claim to make. It just happens that the National Party represents the rich and the powerful and therefore no doubt Maori are deeply under-represented within the National Party caucus. Equally Pakeha need to respect and acknowledge Maori property rights in the foreshore and seabed. Customary usage rights the great majority of which are fishing rights and are unaffected by this legislation because they are already codified—and what we need to do is get on with the implementation of that law—are a form of property rights. The territorial customary rights we refer to are a form of property rights. If the avenue to achieve those is being blocked off then there should be appropriate redress as the legislation provides. It needs to be even-handed in that respect. The legislation provides the avenues to explore that possibility. 
I have been particularly disappointed at the level of much of the debate from the Opposition throughout this process—in particular the failure of National to engage at a level that suggests some fitness for governing this multicultural country. The Leader of the Opposition told us he would fight this legislation with every fibre of his body. Well some people think he did not mean it; I think he did. I think he did fight this legislation with every fibre of his body up to this point! People realise that he was too busy today reading his two favourite sections of the  
New Zealand Herald 
: Situations Vacant and Help Wanted. But we heard the latest version of National’s position on this legislation late this morning; it changed as the people in the gallery changed. Last night when it comprised all Pakeha National’s position was that Maori were getting everything in this legislation and it was outrageous. This morning at a point when we had mainly Maori in the gallery National’s position started to become that the process should be allowed to be continued. Now that there is a sort of mix up in the gallery I am wondering just what the position of the National Party will be as we move into the third reading! 
But the final position this morning announced on behalf of National by Dr Worth was Crown ownership and nothing more—that is no recognition of customary rights not yet recognised and the abolition of inherent jurisdiction of the High Court without redress or replacement. That would be a constitutional outrage. 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 Finally we come to the third readings of this legislation one of the most fateful pieces of legislation ever to be debated in this House. When the Court of Appeal decision was announced in the middle of last year what we thought was settled law was suddenly overturned. We thought that all New Zealanders Maori Pakeha Pacific Islanders and Asians owned the foreshore and seabed. The Court of Appeal turned that into doubt. What should the Government have done? Well its initial reaction got it about right. It initially said that it would legislate to ensure that the foreshore and seabed belonged to all New Zealanders. Even Chris Trotter said on Willie Jackson’s Television One programme  
Eye to Eye 
 on Tuesday night that what Labour should have done after that Court of Appeal decision was cross the floor of this House and ask for National’s support to pass legislation quickly to re-establish the position in law that we all thought was the case. I have no doubt at all that the National Party would have agreed to do exactly that.  
Had the Government done that all the drama all the anguish all the hikoi and demonstrations and all the anger would have been avoided because the Government would have moved quickly to re-establish the position we all thought was in fact the case. What did it actually do? It embarked on a fundamentally dishonest process that gave the appearance of listening to the public of legislating for Crown ownership of providing strictly limited rights to Maori New Zealanders and of adjusting their proposal in the light of submissions but in reality it changed nothing of substance. It embarked on a process that involved endless hui with Maori long hearings at the select committee stage further debate and consultation and now an unseemly cynical rushed process under urgency to get this thing off the agenda as quickly as possible before the public learn what is going on before Christmas and before the election campaign.  
 It has been a process involving secret deals and backroom agreements with anybody and everybody to secure sufficient parliamentary support and to ensure buy-in from Maori. So we see last-minute compromises with other political parties. “Public domain” becomes “Crown ownership”. Ancestral connection in; ancestral connection out. We hear hints of secret assurances of special treatment for Tainui to try to guarantee the support of Nanaia Mahuta. We see evidence that Labour has entered into secret negotiations with at least four iwi aimed at recognising ownership interests. At the end of this process what do we have? We have a fundamentally flawed—[ 
Interruption 
]  
Mr SPEAKER 
: From now on we will hear this debate in relative silence. Dr Cullen was given a good hearing. This is an important debate and there will be very few interjections indeed. Dr Brash’s time has not been affected. 
Dr DON BRASH 
: At the end of the process we have fundamentally flawed legislation that will divide Maori New Zealanders from non-Maori New Zealanders for generations to come. Superficially we have Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore. Superficially we have ownership of the seabed and foreshore by all New Zealanders. If that were the reality the National Party would be supporting this legislation. But it is not the reality. Crown ownership is so heavily qualified that it is meaningless. I take just one example. Ancestral connection has been dropped from the legislation although the Government has made it clear that ancestral connection orders will be taken into account in the review of the Resource Management Act. The Labour Party Maori caucus said on Tuesday that the new plans will provide stronger recognition of the traditional association of whanau hapu and iwi with the coast than the ancestral connection orders initially provided for in the legislation.  
The Government is making it explicitly clear that it reserves the right to hand over ownership of parts of the foreshore and seabed in the context of treaty settlements—exactly as it did with the Rotorua lakes and Te Arawa. The passage of this legislation will mark the beginning of a process whereby control of large tracts of the New Zealand foreshore—the birthright of all New Zealanders—will be handed over to small groups of unelected undemocratic tribal elites. They will be people who can claim some Maori ancestry—often a very small amount. The bill is the result of a Labour Government that is desperate to persuade Maori that they have some continuing and ongoing involvement in the control of the seabed and foreshore while persuading other New Zealanders that ownership is retained by all of us.  
Which party has made this deal possible? New Zealand First. What an extraordinary name for a party that has sold New Zealand and New Zealanders down the river. It has sold us into a world of increased racial division increased racial tension and increased racial dissent by signing up to this sordid deal. Both Labour and New Zealand First have shown their true colours when it comes to treaty issues. The National Party wants to see all New Zealanders—Maori Pakeha Pacific Island Asian young old men and women—treated as equal before the law with a foreshore and seabed owned by all of us not by people who chance to have one Maori ancestor.  
We have seen an inept response from the Government to a controversial decision by our courts. We have seen no leadership on this issue just a Prime Minister blowing in the political wind. We have seen no backbone when that is precisely what was required to bring New Zealand forward as a confident and united country moving into the future. National is absolutely and totally opposed to this legislation.  
The story of Parliament’s management of Treaty of Waitangi issues over the decades has been a saga of neglect and the shirking of responsibility. The important task of spelling out the rights of New Zealand citizens in relation to the treaty has been avoided or even worse abdicated to the courts. The Foreshore and Seabed Bill which now receives its third reading continues and exacerbates this sad legacy. Yet again Parliament has decided that the rights of New Zealanders under the laws of the land are to be placed in the too-hard basket and that our courts will be given explicit powers to determine that one group of New Zealanders is more equal than another.  
In less than 12 months’ time New Zealanders will have the opportunity to elect a Government that will insist that Parliament not the courts will determine the framework of our laws especially as they affect our fundamental rights as citizens. They will have a chance to elect a Government that will insist that laws passed by Parliament will be based on the principle that all New Zealanders regardless of race are equal before the law. They will have an opportunity to ensure that this fatally flawed unprincipled and unfair legislation will never again darken the Chamber of this Parliament. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 There is a famous saying in the Bible: “If the trumpet give an uncertain call who shall prepare himself to the battle?”. I have never seen a more disconsolate and desolate group than the National Party after that speech. Don Brash has been keeping his powder dry and it is still dry. Unbelievable! That speech was a repeat of his first reading speech—nothing new nothing learnt and nothing gained. 
The fact of the matter is that there have been dramatic clauses in this legislation that the mass majority of New Zealanders and Maori will come to believe in. There is one law for all in access egress passage and every other area of the law. 
Stephen Franks 
: Name one. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: There is one law for everyone—the same law. I understand why the ACT party would have difficulty with that because it came here with the strange notion that somehow the right to alienate New Zealand’s foreshore and seabed should be perpetrated in this law. But then we would never know in the end what might happen. That is the kind of anarchy ACT brings to politics. 
That was a first reading speech from the Crimean general. He observed the whole battle from the hillside; at no point did he ever actively participate. He said he would fight this legislation with every fibre of his being. That puts me in mind of Winston Churchill’s famous comment: “Some chicken! Some neck!” Well in this case it is: “No fibre! No being! No presence at all!”. Was the National Party ever in this situation before—a situation where its leader is so bereft of what it takes to be a leader in every respect? 
There is Pontius Pilate! He went to Orewa and made a speech which the media grabbed hold of. But who is responsible for bringing this law about? When will some journalist ask Don Brash why he cannot explain his party’s guilt in this matter? Te Ture Whenua Maori Act was National’s Act.  
Hon Member 
: You voted for it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No I did not vote for it. That member should go and get the  
Hansard 
 walk back in and tell the House the truth for the first time.  
 Here is my point. If all the matters after Orewa were looked at surely some journalist would have asked Dr Brash the following questions: why is he not taking responsibility for the very mess that has been created here? Was it not the National Party all by itself that created it back in 1993? How could that party get away with it?  
But the mob was out. With a lack of disciplined analysis from the media the myth was immediately begun after that day in June that somehow Maori would own the foreshore and seabed all the way to the 200-mile limit—and I suppose to the Ross Dependency as well. But no Maori leaders could possibly allow that sort of myth to be perpetrated when they knew demonstrably that it was not true—ever. 
The Court of Appeal never said that. Judge Hingston knows that full well—I know this personally—because he never believed that the Court of Appeal would say that sea was land. The Court of Appeal never said that in the way those Maori radicals have claimed. It could barely conceive of any group being successful. 
There is no doubt that NgatiPorou would be an exception. It has occupied ninety percent of its coast and has ever since 1840 without European settlement at all in many cases. But where else in New Zealand could any Maori be successful? 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Karikari Peninsula? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Maybe a part of it perhaps.  
Hon Member 
: Whananaki South? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Or Whananaki South—that is fine. We have been here for a thousand years and we have never denied any access as any European will tell us to our foreshore and seabed. We have never ever conceived of having an exclusive right. 
So the mob is out and there are two extremist positions: one on our right and one on our left. One is saying that when this legislation is passed Maori will get everything and the other is saying that they will get nothing. How can they both be right or have a petition that says sea will become land? 
I want to know how the National Party can get away from its guilt and wipe its hands of that in the way it has. Does it feel responsible? No. I have never heard one word from National members to say they are responsible for this mess. Do they feel guilty? No. How irresponsible is that? How irresponsible is it for people to come along with all their colleagues as guilty as sin and by their behaviour seek to blame someone else? It is always someone else. 
Mr Brian Connell accused me of being nurtured in the bosom of the National Party. That is what he said. I suppose he means Dail Jones as well. The trouble with being in the bosom of the National Party is that sooner or later as one of my colleagues said one feels a right tit. 
That man Don Brash called for this debate; he demanded it happen. He bragged about what he would do. We were promised a right volcano and all we heard in the end was a little geyser. Because he never took part in the debate we ended up with Labour and New Zealand First having to engage in a duel of wits with an unarmed opponent—the worst case I have ever seen.  
Has National ever said even today that it would repeal this legislation? No. Is that not the point? Don Brash has not even said he would repeal the legislation. The reason is that National’s argument is a humbug. It is just a nonsense. 
The National Party launched in Orewa with a borrowed speech. As I said back then and as I say now it is one thing to steal a man’s horse but it is quite something else to stay on its back as one is riding out of town. National members know that. 
Last Saturday National had no idea whether it would join the constitutional debate. Within 3 days it was out—and so will ACT be. The National Party which is bereft of principle and beliefs has trawled through the speeches of other parties has looked at the success of other parties’ strategies and has asked how it can duplicate those and be successful—be believed maybe because Don Brash is the anti-politician except that whenever he is asked about Maori policy he never knows.  
What is really his policy on people standing in the Maori seats in 2005? He said yes when he was first asked that question. He was then asked: “Excuse me but aren’t you against the Maori seats?”. He said yes. He was asked whether he would get rid of Maori Television and he said he did not know. When asked about kohanga reo he did not know. It just goes on and on. 
The middle and right of this country really deserve better. They deserve an alternative Government-in-waiting but they will never get one with that sort of leadership. It is really an abrogation of leadership. 
To close I remind members that we in New Zealand First promised—and I am grateful for the hard work of my colleague Dail Jones on this—that there would be Crown ownership. We promised that there would be one law. We promised that the customary rights originating from common law would be codified in this legislation. We promised all those things. After this Christmas every rational sane New Zealander will ask: “What was that all about?”. Thank God people in this country have New Zealand First because come Christmas paradise will have been restored.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table  
Hansard 
 Volume 538 at page 18189 showing that when Te Ture Whenua Maori Act was passed through its second and third readings it was supported by members of every party in the House including Mr Winston Peters. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That member has just made a statement that he knows full well is not true. I ask you to get him to prove it now.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: We are in a debating situation. That was not a point of order. The member can have a call in the debate. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 E tikaakeano ki te mihi akeanoi a ratau e tae akeanoikonei nga kanohi Maori mai i te motu. 
[ 
It is apt that I acknowledge those from Maoridom who are present. Greetings! 
] 
Another great Winston said: “We will fight them on the beaches fight them in the trenches and make sure that we go forward.” Another leader in this House said that he would fight against this legislation with every fibre in his body. Quite certainly the acceleration of osmosis would have to happen to get through that thick naive skin.  
This legislation is significant because it clarifies an issue that has threatened this country for the last 18 months. We have heard all the intellectual debate from the over-endowed academia and those who live off the slush fund. I have sat here and listened to those people talk about white people. That is disgraceful. Those same people are pumped up and pontificating about all New Zealanders. At one extreme we have this belief that there is only one way in this country. Rangatiratanga is not about going one way down a blind alley to a hollow end. Rangatiratanga is about our people’s rights. Those people want everything for the white people and the National Party. How sick can we be in this country?  
This is about protecting Maori rights. People who understand what goes on in this building what happens out there and what the impact of that is on our young people’s lives have done something about it. I unashamedly stand here today. I will go down in history as being a part of this. I have the burden of knowing that even at this stage some of my whanau disagree with me in my view that we have made the right choice.  
That is not the end of the matter. The legislation is also significant because of the recognition and protection it gives to Maori customary rights. Maori have rangatiratanga. Out of rangatiratanga is born kaitiakitanga and tikanga. That is not too different from what that Scottish bloke was saying about his clans. He understands it but he does not want it to happen for the Maori people. People accept that they marry some of them. They accept that they are friends because they go to rugby with them and do the haka but they do not want them to get into a better position. Wake up! They should come down to this House more often especially the leaders.  
The legislation upholds the mana of Maori people and certainly—as the great leader of the New Zealand First party said—we have done something about it. We do not get a fair show from the press at times because they want to get the No. 1 ranking on the front page without people having to read the detail. I know they will take a lot more time to do it now. But I tell our young demographic again so we keep this simple that we—the Maori caucus in this Government—have done a lot for our people. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: No! 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I tell Mr Brownlee we have not shied away from this. We know the tensions the strains and the anxiety. But this is good legislation. You own what you did in 1992—the deal signed here in Wellington in this House in the dark trading customary fishing rights with no consultation and no hui. That is what they like: the great rubber band stretcher of race—racist comments in Orewa. That is what that was about. It was nothing to do with all New Zealanders. It was nothing to do with this great nation. It was about somebody getting off on himself trying to believe that he could still control the Maoris.  
He says: “You can be tangata whenua in this country but you sit over here because that is what I said in this great place in Orewa.” We talked about the elite. We talked about where everybody else is. This legislation does the right thing. It allows access it creates protection and it creates a regulatory framework. Most of the land that is still held in Maoridom is held in a regulated framework. That land could be alienated which is one of the principal reasons why the Maori caucus stepped up to defend it from the outset. Buy a house buy a car sell it—kei te pai! Inherit something and get it sold—no! If you want to stretch the truth sir be careful especially when you are talking about tangata whenua. All I have heard is the opposite. The other option would take some thinking about because you would not do the right thing by Maoridom. I am more than certain of that. We have done the right thing. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I remind the member to speak in the third person. I was being addressed for most of that debate. 
MITA RIRINUI (Labour—Waiariki) 
: 
 Given that this is the final reading of this legislation and it will shortly be enacted it is time for acknowledgments of various participants in this process. As I follow the Minister of Maori Affairs in this debate I want to take a few minutes of my speaking time to acknowledge the commitment and the dedication he has shown throughout this very arduous difficult process.  
Some months ago at the beginning of this year there was a huge call for the Minister of Maori Affairs to take the rest of his party’s Maori members across the floor and walk from Parliament. I want to say to this House that that was at times a much-favoured consideration. But we sat down as a Maori caucus and gave really in-depth thought to it. This is our conclusion. I am sure everybody around the country has now heard the speech by the leader of the National Party Don Brash. In the light of that speech they must understand why we did not cross the floor and why we did not walk from Parliament—because the alternative was too frightening to think about.  
So I want to take the time to acknowledge the Hon Parekura Horomia. I know there has been a round of acknowledgments by Dr Michael Cullen but I also want to pay tribute to all of those members of Parliament who participated in the processes of the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee particularly the chair of the select committee Russell Fairbrother. I had to ask him earlier this year why anybody would want to do it. This is one of those too-hard-basket projects. But he was more than willing to give of his time and stake his reputation to bring closure to this particular matter.  
I also thank the Hon Dover Samuels and Mahara Okeroa. I also thank Dail Jones who represented the New Zealand First Party in the select committee processes. While I say he did play a strong part in bringing the legislation back to the House that is all I will say about him because basically the ownership of this legislation sits with the Government. No reira Mr Speaker mihi akeanaahau ki a ratau. 
[ 
And so Mr Speaker I acknowledge them 
.]  
The sad part about this whole process is that the expectations of Maori have been raised way beyond belief and way beyond what we as a Government or we as a Maori caucus could deliver. That has left a stench. It is the stench of misinformation and the stench of hypocrisy. Many people out there on the hustings were led to believe that parties within this Chamber could deliver on those expectations. Well this is the day of reckoning. It cannot be done. The Maori caucus are very confident that we have protected the interests of all New Zealanders and particularly Maori in terms of customary rights according to common law. Kia ora tatau. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Let me first acknowledge all of those who are in the gallery today to witness this travesty; those who are outside the Parliament in protest; those who are listening to this debate in their homes in sorrow; those who made submissions against the legislation; and those who were part of the amazing hikoi to Parliament in May. I also acknowledge NgatiApa NgatiKoata Ngati Kuia NgatiRarua Ngati Tama Ngati Toa and Rangitane who all took the NgatiApa case through the Court of Appeal and now are about to have their lawfully acquired rights destroyed by legislation. It is with the deepest sadness that I stand at the third reading of this legislation.  
When I was given the honour of becoming a member of Parliament I looked forward to trying to find ways to make real changes that would benefit my people. The tangata whenua in this country have worked incredibly hard to combat the personal and structural racism that has been a blight on the colonisation of this land. Much of that racism has been expressed in legislation like the Maori Prisoners Act which dispensed with trials for Maori prisoners; the New Zealand Settlements Act whereby 3 million acres of land were confiscated; the Native Reserves Act which took even more land in confiscation; and the Native Health Act which made it illegal for Maori women to breastfeed their babies and adopt under the whangai system.  
In the face of that racism—the legislation that has confiscated our land undermined our tikanga and abused our people—we have nonetheless become very successful. We have held on to our tikanga our values and our identity. We have advanced and developed them. We have been successful in business education law and politics. We have successfully supported our communities. We have achieved in all walks of life and taken on the challenges levelled against us. Our tenacity in our commitment to the restoration of our rights on our own land is exemplary.  
In attempting to restore our confiscated land rights we have used every forum available to us—every commission and every court since colonisation took place right up to the present day. We like other citizens have relied on the honour of the State. In using the forums of the State to assert our rights we have relied on the Government to honour its own processes. In the 3rd millennium after all this work one would expect that our right to be Maori in our own land would be undeniable and that our role as parliamentarians now would be to build on that work to advance the social economic and constitutional position of the tangata whenua.  
But no I find that in accepting this privilege to be in Parliament instead of working effectively for the progression of my people I am thrust back in time 150 years and returned to the struggle against colonial power the struggle to hold up the rights that tangata whenua had even under the colonial common law—fighting the same arguments over the confiscation of land objecting again to parliamentary sovereignty flexing its muscle against tangata whenua regardless of the justice of the issue fighting the same manipulation and deception and fighting the same arrogance and paternalism. No by this legislation this House is returned to the same indecent fight: the fight to be Maori in our own land. This legislation is a direct descendant of the racist legislation of our colonial forebears and to our shame it is done in the name of all New Zealanders. I know from my travels around this country from the submissions from the hui that I have attended from those who travelled on the hikoi and from those outside and on Parliament grounds right now that thousands of New Zealanders are crying out: “Not in our name. No raupatu in our time. No raupatu in our name.” I am proud at least to be here on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand to join our voices to those of the thousands of New Zealanders who object to this unjust confiscatory legislation.  
The Greens oppose this legislation because we are committed to justice and we are prepared to stand up for that principle. We have been tireless in our advocacy for the protection of Maori customary rights. The Government has tried to justify its abuse by saying that Maori customary rights are protected but no amount of intellectual pretzelism nor media spin will change the fact that Maori customary rights are extinguished and that the foreshore and seabed remain under the threat of exploitation damage and—still—sale.  
We have been tireless in our advocacy for the protection of the ecology of the foreshore and seabed; our precious coast. This legislation perpetuates bad environmental management of the coast. Raw sewage is still being pumped into the sea; fragile dune ecology shellfish beds and nesting grounds remain vulnerable to four-wheel drives and other damaging human activity; and inappropriate sale coastal subdivision and commercial development on historical headlands like Tauroa Point still continue. The poisoning of our communities families and children continues unabated in places like Whakatane because of the dumping of toxic mill pulp on the foreshore and the failure of any authorities to take responsibility for cleaning it up.  
Our coast is at real risk. We rely on coastal communities of all kinds taking responsibility for their areas patrolling and protecting the coast and conserving and replanting. Those communities rely on good relationships and cooperation. How are they rewarded by Parliament? Their communities are divided by racist legislation their work is undermined and their commitment is left unacknowledged and uncertain.  
So many hapu and whanau take direct responsibility for the awhi of the coast exercising over decades their tupuna-derived kaitiakitanga. How are they rewarded for their work? They are viciously punished for exercising their tikanga their rights are stripped away and they are treated as pariahs in their own country.  
We make a final plea to this Government: “Just don’t do it.” This Parliament is at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history: to return to our paternalistic past or take the path of justice and peace and we are about to blow it. We will blow it on greed on the desire for power on intellectual fallacies and on political expediency. All New Zealanders will hold this Parliament to account for the wrong that the Government is about to commit. For Maori we have been here before and no doubt we will be here again defending our right to be Maori in our own country. We welcome our Pakeha friends and colleagues who object to this raupatu in their name to join us in this struggle. Together we will continue to seek justice and peace in our country—ka whawhaitonumatouake ake ake. 
[ 
We will fight on forever and ever 
.] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 This legislation is unnecessary precipitate an overreaction fraudulent and based on smoke and mirrors. It has already been called the “Floorshow and Rocky Bottom Bill” and that is about the limit of its worth.  
The ACT position from the outset has been clear and I think that other parties in the House have had the grace to acknowledge that. Our position has been clear and robust because it is based on the sanctity of property rights and due process of law—which are really what this legislation has overridden. The ACT party convened a high-level seminar shortly after the Court of Appeal decision in 2003 and we had constitutional experts and leading kaumatua there. We had a full-day discussion that greatly assisted us in coming to what has been a very consistent and robust position.  
What we see are the unintended consequences of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act of 1993. We had the Court of Appeal decision after a long process. The NgatiApa case decision 
from the Court of Appeal was not particularly complicated; it was quite clear. It simply said that in some instances—and it even indicated that they could be isolated and somewhat rare and remote—there may exist a right for some iwi to pursue their right based on customary rights to acquire title. It was nothing more and nothing less than that.  
It is true that at the various hui that were held around the country various Maori did overreact with some believing that they had full exclusive and undisturbed possession to the heavens and beyond and back to Hawaiki. There was a lot of rhetoric but we should not be surprised by that. Any group would do that. But the point is that this Government has been complicit in the problem in both ways.  
The remedy was quite simple from the outset. It is contained in the Foreshore and Seabed Bill in schedule 3 where there is a nice little clause that does it all. It amends Te Ture Whenua Maori Act by repealing the definition of land in section 4 and substituting the following definition: “ ‘land’—(a) means—(i) Maori land General land and Crown land that is on the landward side of mean high water springs; and (ii) Maori freehold land that is on the seaward side of mean high water springs; but (b) does not include the public foreshore and seabed”. That simple little measure would address this whole mischief of what is widely regarded as the unintended consequences of that Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. Instead we have gone through this incredible debate not just in Parliament but countrywide. There was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty associated with that when that measure is so simple. It is based on property rights and on due process of law.  
The other action that the Government could have taken was to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision to the Privy Council. It could have taken it to the Privy Council. We know why it did not like to pursue that option: it was right in the middle of disassociating New Zealand from the Privy Council and that would have been a bit of an embarrassment and a back-down. So the Government did not pursue that option that was available to it.  
But the real mischief created in this legislation and where the angst and anguish will live with us for future generations is this new regime that it creates. People should be under no doubt or illusion whatsoever that we are creating a new regime to manage the foreshore and seabed. It is racist legislation. It is not racist to uphold Maori property rights—absolutely not. The ACT party would far rather have seen clear specific respected and clearly understood property rights established. If in the public interest the Crown were subsequently to resolve that it needed to expropriate those rights in certain circumstances it could always do that. The Crown often expropriates private property rights in the public good. It should do so rarely and only when necessary but it does have that right and it must pay full compensation when it takes such action. So this Government was not in any form of bind whatsoever.  
What it really wanted to do all along was to grab that wonderful socialist tool the Resource Management Act and put it on steroids—that is what the Government has done. It has put the Resource Management Act on steroids and now we have imported a whole lot of spiritual tikanga provisions into what was always intended to be the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. Now it is the confused management of metaphysical and spiritual matters.  
That is the inherent problem with the Resource Management Act as it exists now before this amendment is passed. I need only remind members that the hold-up of work on State Highway 1 at Meremere was because of a taniwha. There is endless cost and extortion going on up and down this country by various groups exercising a right and a privilege that has been given to them. That is the basis of the problem. It is racist when a right or privilege of control and regulation is conferred on a group of people based on their race or ethnicity—or more particularly on the date that one of their ancestors or possibly more happened to arrive in this country. That is what we are doing as a nation and that is deeply racist.  
It is not racist to recognise customary rights and give proper title where appropriate. That would be a very non-racist policy. But no instead we are conferring on a group of people a privilege that gives them extraordinary powers under the Resource Management Act to hold the country to extortion. It virtually invites that extortion as we have seen for a number of years now under the Resource Management Act. Many New Zealanders find it uncomfortable to talk about that. A lot of developers know that they just have to pay up and shut up because that has become the norm. But that does not make it right and that is what we will now see up and down this country.  
I have already mentioned the example of the taniwha at Meremere which had a lot of publicity. In this debate we have had a lot of reference to the Wakapuaka Estuary in Delaware Bay which I know very well. I worked there with a bunch of scientists way back in the 1970s doing tidal surveys and aquacultural marine life surveys. It is a marvellous place. There are urupa there and we certainly respected them. They are well understood in the local community. But a gate has been put up and access denied over the foreshore and seabed for four-wheel drive vehicles to launch boats.  
The difficulty is that the local iwi who are denying that access are saying they do not like it because it disturbs their urupa. How does that explain the fact that if one pays $100 one can get a key? That is established fact. That is the problem when there are not clear property rights and instead when there are nebulous powers privileges and rights to exercise powers that are not well defined under a tool as deficient as the Resource Management Act. It is that old socialist realisation of the third-way people. One does not have to own it any more in the classical socialist sense; it can be done by control now. That is really what this legislation is all about; the guts of this legislation is an amendment to the Resource Management Act. It is bad legislation and it will be divisive for New Zealand society.  
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Today is a very sad day for this Parliament and for this country. It is a sad not just because legislation that is of profound significance is being passed through this House under urgency but because it is being passed by a very slim margin in a hotly divided environment. The tradition in this country has been that where substantive measures of this type which transcend political party boundaries but go to the heart of our nationhood are being considered every effort is usually made to reach bipartisan conclusions and to ensure that the progress of that legislation is in a way that is orderly proper and unlikely to be the subject of subsequent division and debate.  
I look at the great moves in the 1990s when the National Party was in power in terms of the NgaiTahu and the Tainui settlements and at the work that was done then to bring the Labour Opposition onside so that the occasions when legislation was debated in Parliament were occasions of celebration and of recognition that something deep and meaningful had been achieved and that the country at least to its parliamentary leaders was standing on the same plane. That is a vast contrast with what we see happening today.  
Before I continue I want to pay particular tribute though to the Deputy Prime Minister who throughout this process since the Court of Appeal ruling last June has worked tirelessly and genuinely to seek a resolution. I think that whatever the political difference Dr Cullen’s contribution needs to be acknowledged. But I am concerned beyond those sterling efforts to note that what we have essentially seen on this issue is a failure of leadership. Last November nearly a year ago I suggested to both the major parties that this issue was so important they should set aside their differences—particularly as we see them expressed today; not being very greatly different from each other—and work for a common solution. Both parties said that was not possible.  
In the wake of the Orewa speech in March I raised the issue again. The ground had shifted a little bit. One party said it was not interested and the other said it was too late for that. Had they put aside their narrow political differences and worked together in harmony recognising that this was an issue upon which New Zealanders were looking for leadership we would not have seen the subsequent disharmony division and bitterness that has divided our nation unnecessarily. When we look at the positions of the respective parties on this point there is vast if not universal agreement that what we all seek is an assurance that the position that each one of us understood was the actual case prior to the court ruling would be maintained; that there would not be limitations placed on people’s right to access various parts of the foreshore and seabed in the way that they always have done; that those traditional areas where Maori had special values and special attachments would be recognised but that fundamentally life would go on pretty much as it had done.  
None of us I suspect had heard too much about foreshore and seabed until a year ago. We knew it was there but perhaps we did not have a great deal of interest in or appreciation of its significance. Now that has all changed. The real issue that this Parliament is now having to confront and our country is having to consider—because this legislation will pass—is: how certain is it? How stable is the environment that has been put in place? What guarantees have we for the future? My colleague Larry Baldock whose contribution I acknowledge moved an amendment during the Committee stage seeking to entrench particular versions or parts of this legislation in an effort to give a sense of certainty that the solutions now being put in place had some permanence. That amendment was defeated.  
United Future parted company with the Government on this legislation earlier in the year over the issue of public domain again for that same reason. We want people to be absolutely certain that nothing will get in the way of their traditional understanding of access to the foreshore and seabed and that there will be no uncertainties ambiguities or hesitations about future Government action in this regard. Legislation passed under urgency—because the primary reason seems to be to get it out of the way before Christmas—in a hotly divided Parliament with protesters on the lawn outside hardly gives an assurance to New Zealanders that this is the end of the matter. I think we now face some serious questions. 
 It is interesting to note from the Leader of the Opposition’s speech as Mr Peters pointed out that there is no commitment to date to repeal the legislation. I suspect that commitment will come at Orewa in January because that will be much nearer the election. The wry smile gives it all away. But the problem with that is that until we put the issue aside the uncertainty remains for everybody. At one level people will say as I heard a commentator say on the radio this morning that they will still be able to go to the beach this summer. That might well be so but at another level we are starting to see sinister and dangerous actions occur.  
I deplore the fact that some benighted group of radicals chose to throw an axe into the Prime Minister’s electorate office today. That is despicable and disgraceful and is up there with that idiot who cut down the tree on One Tree Hill. But the problem is that when people feel disempowered or left out those sorts of actions become their option. Then it will not be too far away before some other idiot decides that he or she can charge people to come on to a bit of land or put up a sign with a restriction stating that people are now entering on to Maori ancestral land or whatever and the whole set of tensions divisions and bitterness that has been so prevalent over the last 12 months is fuelled once again.  
There is nothing to celebrate today. There is nothing to be proud of or committed about. I guess what we can be rueful of is that this is a lost opportunity. It is an indictment of the failure of the two major parties to get together in the national interest and it is a sad recognition that when faced with the opportunity to do something constructive in the interests of our people as a whole we as a Parliament have flunked the test and I regret that bitterly. 
TARIANA TURIA (Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 First of all I thank those who have chaired the House and the Committee through what has been a very difficult process and I acknowledge those iwi in the top end of the South Island who took their case to the Court of Appeal and were then denied justice to go on to the courts.  
Today we are witnessing the death of democracy through the tyranny of the majority. Over the last few days this Chamber has witnessed some desperate cries for credibility from members of the Government whose Maori seats will be sacrificed by the Government to save the general members’ seats. We heard cries of confusion and of complicity and we heard the plea that we need a vision of what New Zealand is today not what it was in the 19th century. Yet this legislation takes us right back to those days a period in the mid-1880s when this Parliament will recall a shameful history where the majority of Maori males were not then eligible to vote on the general electoral roll and at that time we were the majority. To be on the electoral roll males were required to hold a minimum amount of private property whereas nearly all Maori then did not own property individually but communally. What I put to all members today is to show me the difference between then and now.  
This bill is a discriminatory act. It treats private property rights as more important than customary property rights. When I was a child other children used to say: “What’s mine is my own.” Now what Maori children will say is: “What was mine is everybody’s.” The backroom deal with New Zealand First has made an absolute mockery of the select committee process. Only the privileged were listened to and that is everyone except tangata whenua. When members try to convince us that the legislation is all about New Zealanders they seem to forget that tangata whenua are also New Zealanders—a collective group of New Zealanders who have special constitutional status by virtue of the relationship signed up to by all our ancestors Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  
We listened to members desperately trying to convince themselves that the Government is proud of its ongoing fiduciary obligation to tangata whenua. The basis of a fiduciary relationship is that of trust. Does anyone in the House honestly think that tangata whenua will be fooled into thinking that they can trust a Government that has sacrificed extinguished and confiscated the last piece of customary land that we held by default? The only fiduciary relationship we believe in is that vested between tangata whenua and the Crown in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Our position with respect to te tiriti is unequivocal. It is a cornerstone of the constitution of Aoteaora.  
Let us look instead at what the minority Government is pinning all its hopes on—the fiduciary relationship it will have with tangata whenua through the establishment of reserves. Prospective groups must in line with section 34C make application to the High Court to apply for the establishment of a reserve. If successful in their application the High Court then directs them to prepare a charter by which the board will administer the reserve. The High Court then directs as set down in section 34D(a) for the board to be established as a legal entity and then in section 34D(b) the group has to present a charter to the High Court again itemising a host of technical specifications for the new legal entity. Such an exhaustive process for compliance hardly represents to me an action of trust. I recall the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the other night throwing off that in the Court of Appeal case while there were 34 lawyers acting in the interests of iwi the Crown needed only four. Of course she neglected to mention the huge departmental infrastructure available to the Crown or the unlimited public purse.  
This legislation adds further to the labyrinth of legal processes that our people must push through. New Zealand First the party that has made its name out of criticising the so-called gravy train is now proudly standing by a legislative sham that sets into play an excessive reliance on lawyers. We have gone from the gravy train to the whole railway network. If our people are not to be borne down with the weight of compliance costs the confusion created by this legislation in its use of terminology will be the final straw. The minority Government has tried to mislead our people by promoting the idea that Maori groups that would have won aboriginal title claims can now opt to be guardians of reserves.  
Guardianship is about whakapapa. It is about mana. Contrast that with the meaning of guardianship in the Foreshore and Seabed Bill to mean the members of the board of a foreshore and seabed reserve. In other words a concept that we see as intimately connected to kaitiakitanga is reduced to members of a committee. The terminology promulgated in this legislation for the concept of guardianship is totally devoid of any Maori interpretation. In this legislation creating reserves is just another way of trying to influence Maori into believing that they will have a management right but all those reserves will be subject to the existing rights of access and other laws like the Resource Management Act that protect the coastal areas. The legislation further suggests that kaitiakitanga will be expressed through the review of the Resource Management Act. Given that Maori consultation has always been so poorly carried out in the context of that Act what confidence can whanau and hapu have in the legislation?  
Let me get this right. This minority Government with the full support of New Zealand First will strip our people of their birthright their customary property of takutai moana in exchange for what? It expects us to willingly take on an arduous process of negotiating with local authorities to confirm a management plan. What is even more bizarre is that the members of the board of the reserve the so-called guardians are to do so for the benefit of the public. So they are to manage the service with no capacity to receive any resources or any other form of payment for any activities undertaken as specified in section 34B(2). We are not only being robbed but we are also being asked to do community service for the rest of our lives.  
Maori have experienced the large-scale legitimised theft of land through the policy of raupatu yet we punish Maori and other New Zealanders who steal. Those are the double standards that serve to confuse and enrage our people. Stealing land by Government is accepted as legitimate whereas theft is punishable by law—the so-called one law for all New Zealanders. This nation is tired of doubletalk of deliberate confusion and of unseemly haste. This nation is tired of the divisive intent of this legislation. This legislation never needed to happen.  
We are not on about the fences or the gates. Those are the barriers built by this Government and now New Zealand First that will remain between the peoples of this land and our people and their land. The issue was never about contiguous use. The issue is about tikanga and that is what has been ignored. Two simple changes could have been made to existing legislation—changes to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to prevent the alienation of land and changes to the Resource Management Act to give certainty to access. A movement was born of this legislation and I want to mihi to a movement that looks to reflect the thousands of New Zealanders who marched on Parliament the thousands who spent more hours writing submissions and the people who travelled here today to demonstrate their grief. The Maori Party on behalf of all those people we represent and for the sake of all our future generations vehemently opposes this legislation. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 After many many hours of debate the House is close to passing this most unfortunate piece of legislation. I say “unfortunate” because if one looks back over the last 24-25 hours in this House and sees and feels some of the passion and the fire that has gone into the various speeches that have been offered by members in this House one will see that this is one of the debates—perhaps the debate—of this term of Parliament where members were truly showing why they had come to Parliament. They came here because they are passionate about making this country better and doing things that are in the best interests of this country. The Government thinks that that is what it has done. A very substantial number of the rest of us think that is exactly what it has not done.  
The National Party does not support this legislation has not supported this legislation and will not be supporting this legislation in the future. Is it not an irony that the National Party today finds itself in agreement with the Maori Party? It is quite an irony. If one looks at the commentary on the bill and sees the report back of the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee one will notice that the New Zealand National Party put in its minority view that the way to fix this issue was to deal with Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and to take a look at the Resource Management Act. Both of those pieces of legislation were just offered to the House as solutions by Tariana Turia from the Maori Party.  
I say to Parekura Horomia the Minister of Maori Affairs who has not covered himself with a great deal of glory over the process and passage of this bill that for him to simply point to this side of the House and say that we are the people who dwell in the dungeons of gloom and they are somehow the people of the light is quite wrong. I would challenge him to go out to the front of Parliament now and tell that to those Maori who have come here expressing their upset at the way this law is being passed. When it came to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act being passed in 1993 not one submission to that bill mentioned the foreshore or the seabed—not one. Not one speech in the Committee stage or the first second or third readings mentioned the seabed or the foreshore because the understanding was as far as all were concerned that they were owned administered and looked after by the Crown.  
When the Government saw what was happening as the Court of Appeal moved to its decision last year it should have talked to all parties in this House to uphold what had been a previously unanimously passed bill. But it did not. It ran off into its corner and decided to take a very partisan position—a partisan position that will come back to haunt it because this is the first time a Government in New Zealand has passed a law that is as overtly racist as this one. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell Mr Cunliffe the outgoing member for New Lynn that the next irony is that it is racist on two points. It is racist from the point of view that for the first time ever Maori are now going to be able to talk about their customary rights only in the context of what the courts allow. They will be able to exercise those rights only according to the wills wishes and whims of the Minister of Conservation. So to just say that there has been no diminishing of those rights is quite wrong. I would ask anybody to tell me where those customary rights around this country—rights that are being exercised now and have been exercised for hundreds of years—have actually caused a problem. That is not where the problems are in this country. The problems occur when Governments start to marginalise people—to as Mr Fairbrother would say codify what their rights are. That is where the difficulty comes.  
The legislation is racist on a second count because it tells any New Zealander no matter how long he or she has been here since 1840 that he or she can never have a right that can be recognised in a customary sense. I have to say that I simply do not understand that. Let us suppose that we are 200 years or 300 years into the future. Will we still be saying that 1840 was a break that if people are able to claim ancestry pre-1840 they have extra rights extra opportunities and extra ability to claim parts of the coastline in this country and to administer it but that if one came here after that one will not? That will not endure. It simply will not endure.  
The other thing that I would like to point out is the two very interesting clauses in the bill that weaken its intent and purpose quite significantly. The first is clause 112 and the second is clause 115. Those two clauses when taken together make it abundantly clear that the Labour Government intends still to deal to Maori an opportunity to hold title to various parts of the foreshore and seabed around this countryside. We know that those negotiations are going on. The Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has told us.  
The thing that New Zealanders will find hard to understand is that while Labour is claiming to have sorted this out and while New Zealand First is claiming to have sorted this out in a very short time we will see areas—perhaps the first will be the Raglan Harbour on the west coast of the North Island—handed back to Tainui as part of their ongoing treaty settlement. We are now seeing the nods from the Tainui representative in the House. That makes the whole thing somewhat of a mockery. That is why also New Zealanders will start to turn with a little bit of venom on New Zealand First. They have not thought through their position on this at all clearly. They have not fixed it. They have created an opportunity for significant ongoing grievance. I appreciate that people such as Mr Jim Peters believe that they have done their best but I want to tell them that they had no obligation to fix what was a mess from the very first time it hit the floor of this House.  
Mr Dunne made a very impassioned speech to the House suggesting that we should all work together a lot more closely. Well we all know that Mr Dunne is essentially a man without a uniform strutting around looking for a parade to lead. Well this is not the one to lead because we have a Government that does not like talking to other parties in this House unless it needs a vote. 
 This issue has been out there since August of last year. As Dr Brash said it would have been very easy for the Labour Party members to say to the National Party the New Zealand First Party and every other party in this House: “Let’s have a bit of a behind-the-scenes talk about what we might do.” But there was none of that because that would be taking too much away from them.  
That brings us to the issue of the special select committee that the Government wants to set up to discuss the constitution. We will not be part of that. Even though we gave the Prime Minister 3 days to send us some information about the terms of reference nothing turned up. We thought: “Well if that is the case and we take the experience of the special select committee looking at the foreshore and seabed legislation where the Government spent a lot of people’s time listening to New Zealanders and then turned up with what was virtually a rewrite of the bill without reference to New Zealanders won’t that be exactly what it will do over constitutional issues as well?” Today this Government has signalled to New Zealanders why it is not fit to govern and why it will not govern beyond the next election. 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 It would be an understatement to note that this legislation has provoked considerable debate both inside and outside this Parliament. However much of that debate has been about matters not in the legislation. Essentially the legislation recognises common law customary rights to the foreshore and seabed in the context of vesting full legal and beneficial ownership in the public foreshore and seabed in the Crown and guaranteeing general rights of access to all peoples.  
The Foreshore and Seabed Bill arose out of the decision of the Court of Appeal in the NgatiApa case—a decision that created considerable legal uncertainty while addressing the longstanding and important issue of the recognition and content of common law customary rights to the foreshore and seabed. In deciding that the Maori Land Court had jurisdiction to determine common law customary rights the court opened the opportunity for privatisation of title to the foreshore and seabed long assumed to have been held in the ownership of the Crown. Given the fundamental responsibility of any Government to provide good order and stability there was no choice for this Government but to do what it did—that is to clarify the law.  
The object and purpose of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill were set out clearly in clause 2A and clause 3. The object is to preserve the public foreshore and seabed in perpetuity for all New Zealanders including whanau hapu and iwi. The purpose is to vest the full legal and beneficial ownership in the Crown thus guaranteeing public access while recognising and protecting ongoing customary rights.  
Many in the Opposition have argued that the legislation is racist. That allegation comes from both extremes of the Maori and non-Maori opponents of the legislation. Listening to their arguments highlights for me the raison d’etre of the legislation—namely that it balances and reconciles the interests of all New Zealanders.  
When we step back and look at the legislation as a whole and in its context it is apparent that essential elements of it synthesise concepts integral to tikanga and to the values shared by other New Zealanders. For example the notion of a shared common space held in perpetuity in common to both Maori and non-Maori alike is not an unknown concept to all peoples. What Maori also seek however is recognition of their unique tangata whenua status as the guardians of the foreshore and seabed and that as guardians they have specific rights and interests. This legislation gives that recognition in a tangible way through the customary rights orders. It also goes a step further and recognises that if a whanau hapu or iwi group establish territorial rights in the High Court then the claimants are entitled to redress as set out in the bill. The legislation has then in effect incorporated the common law customary rights into statute. This legislation formalises the recognition of common law customary rights and provides a process to determine the nature and extent of those rights and if those rights are established provides a way to enforce them.  
Throughout the various stages of the legislation much has been made of the argument that due process has been denied Maori claimants. It has been argued that it should have been left to the Maori Land Court. Prior to this legislation such a process could have resulted in the privatisation of the foreshore and seabed which was not wanted by most Maori or non-Maori. However the legislation does not deny due process. It provides for both the Maori Land Court and the High Court to hear and determine claims brought under the legislation. It is true that the process cannot lead to privatisation of the foreshore and seabed but it does lead to remedies—those remedies in the form of customary rights orders and territorial customary rights orders.  
During the debate on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill there has been much discussion on the nature of territorial customary rights. This legislation codifies the common law in respect of aboriginal title or customary title. It replaces the current jurisdictions of the Maori Land Court and the High Court with new jurisdictions. The common law doctrine provides for a continuum of customary rights. At one end is uses activities and practices and at the other end of the continuum is full customary rights equating to exclusive occupation and possession. The legislation follows the common law in that respect. However it takes a more liberal position than Australian case law in that it actually recognises that a form of exclusive ownership rights may exist.  
It is important to note in this context that no common law jurisdiction has recognised exclusive customary ownership rights in the foreshore and seabed. In fact the  
Yarmirr 
 case in Australia concluded that there could be no such rights over the foreshore and seabed. It would have been interesting if the Court of Appeal had considered the  
Yarmirr 
 decision in its decision. It is admitted that this is a difficult area of the law and tribute must be paid to Dr Paul McHugh a leading international expert for giving his time and expertise to the Waitangi Tribunal and the select committee. Through his evidence it was possible to develop criteria for a territorial customary title that was consistent with the common law but relevant to the particular circumstances in New Zealand.  
Finally I note that the provision of reserves as a form of redress is based on the notion that in accordance with tikanga the customary interest that Maori had in the foreshore and seabed was one of control and management not ownership as Tariana Turia believes. This remedy then is consistent with common law notions of customary rights and with tikanga which is why the Maori members argued so strongly for its specific inclusion in the legislation. This legislation then is a balance between the interests to preserve customary rights and activities as exercised by both Maori and non-Maori. It grapples with an interest that has been around for a long time and which previous Governments have avoided. The fact that it provoked strong political reaction is not a surprise. However I trust that when the heat has settled and the remedies in the legislation are pursued the legislation will be seen for what it is—a reconciliation of differences through respect and tolerance of the interests and the rights of everyone in this country. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 There is only one flaw in the previous speaker’s argument and it is that it is not what she believed after the case. Two days after the case she said: “Legislate to confirm the fundamental understanding that has prevailed in this country for 100 years—Crown ownership on behalf of all New Zealanders Maori and non-Maori alike.” She was confirmed in that view by the Prime Minister and as we made clear at the time we would have supported a simple proposition and that is what the Attorney-General thought was the right answer at the time. What she has now ended up delivering is legislation that is essentially here at the behest of the Maori members of the Labour Party. That is their clear and deliberate intent. The Deputy Prime Minister knows the truth of it. That is why Nanaia Mahuta almost certainly I predict will be voting for this legislation. They have their private deals in this legislation and the clauses to protect them are buried deep within it.  
Let us just analyse what the bill actually does—because they have this global idea of Crown ownership on behalf of all and they want New Zealanders to believe that that in essence is what the legislation does. Certainly there is a clause to that effect but it is whittled away in the subsequent 100 clauses by a cheese-paring attack on the rights of all New Zealanders.  
So we do have a complex and difficult structure. Let us analyse that. Firstly we have territorial customary rights granted by application to the High Court. That will lead to Maori reserves up and down the country. We understand based on what the Maori members have said to the  
New Zealand Herald 
—they cannot deny this and they will not deny it—that the area will be 10 percent at an absolute minimum. We know where those places are already—Eastern Bay of Plenty East Cape the far north parts of Taranaki and no doubt other parts of the nation. That is the first point.  
The second point is that customary rights orders will come before the Maori Land Court. Is that the right court to be dealing with something in an area of general interest? This is a very important point. It is intended that the foreshore and seabed belong to all New Zealanders irrespective of their ethnicity. The Maori Land Court is specifically set up to deal with land disputes essentially as between Maori. There is a huge new jurisdiction where a court set up for essentially one group of the population will be resolving issues for all the population. The court simply does not have the experience the resources or the background for that role. Those are the sorts of things we would expect at the very minimum to be done by the courts of general jurisdiction—the High Court.  
The third point is the notional concept of customary rights for all New Zealanders which was inserted at the behest of New Zealand First. The only example of course is the Auckland Anniversary Regatta. I am not aware that there has been any problem that the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron has had for the last 163 years. Has it asked for this solution? The answer is no because frankly there is no particular problem. This is a fallacious approach to legislation.  
Then we have a whole range of amendments to the Resource Management Act the effect of which will mean that major strategic facilities that have to be built in places where they do not already exist—and I say that in particular—can now be vetoed. So a particular customary rights holder can veto something to the national benefit for all New Zealanders. That is wrong.  
Finally buried in clause 115 is the provision that enables the Crown and this Government—the Government has made it clear that this is its plan—to alienate the foreshore and seabed from the people of New Zealand to particular Maori claimants. The precedents are already there. They are the Lake Rotorua settlement—an area that was and is owned on behalf of all New Zealanders by the Crown since 1922 in a freely negotiated arrangement. This Government in the 21st century is reversing all of that. It is taking it away from the people of New Zealand and transferring it to particular groups. The Government intends to do that on the west coast harbours. Nanaia Mahuta said that in the select committee Government officials said that in the select committee the Prime Minister said that in the House and the New Zealand First Party has conspired in the process.  
At least the Government has been upfront. I can only assume that New Zealand First members have been duped—that I guess is being charitable to them—because they are betraying their principles. They say they believe in one law for all New Zealanders. Well the only “oneness” is the fact that it is contained in a single document but that document now has two laws—customary rights for Maori and no customary rights for anyone else other than the Auckland Anniversary Regatta. That is frankly absurd. They have betrayed their own principles. So Mr Winston Peters cannot claim and should not claim—because it is a falsehood—to have fixed it. What in fact he has done is to participate in the wrecking. He has now got the right appellation of a wrecker not a fixer.  
I want to talk about two other issues: first the matter of customary rights and second a matter important to North Shore City residents. National did say in its report that it supported customary rights and then it said that there must be a balancing between the interests of the general community and the holders of customary rights. Actually there are existing mechanisms to do precisely that. They are contained in the 1993 fisheries legislation and are known as the taiapure and the mataitai. They do have mechanisms of governance and controls over the use of fishery resources—shellfish and the like—and by and large they work. Similarly we have the example of the mutton birds in the Titi Islands. So we do understand our history and that was the way the issue needed to be dealt with.  
I now wish to turn to the issue of the North Shore city residents. I have to acknowledge that their position was finally protected. It took an enormous amount of work by me as the member of Parliament for North Shore to try to get that into the legislation. 
Dail Jones 
: You didn’t vote on it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: It finally came in on the very last day—and I want to address that particular point raised by Mr Jones. The National Party sought to vote on the relevant clause because there was only one clause on the relevant Supplementary Order Paper. We sought leave from Parliament to vote on that and we would have voted for that as a separate clause because we recognised the importance of those rights being protected for North Shore residents. Do members know what the Government’s reaction was?  
Peter Brown 
: Don’t tell me they voted against that? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The Government denied leave to vote separately on that important issue. On that Supplementary Order Paper was a whole range of other measures.  
Dail Jones 
: No no.  
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: That is very clear. There was a whole range of other measures including— 
Dail Jones 
: Tell the truth for once. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I have read the Supplementary Order Paper in detail. There was another range of measures as well and the Government was expecting us to vote for all of them. So we sought the leave. We said in the purpose for the leave that we would vote for it. The Government in its usual arrogance—and this bill is an example—denied that leave. Having said that I do think that North Shore residents will be well pleased with that result because their rights have been protected. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 Perhaps I should start by referring to the last comment of the previous speaker the National Party member for North Shore which reflects on the content of that speech. He referred to Supplementary Order Paper 306 in the name of the Hon Dr Michael Cullen as having a raft of other measures on it. It does not.  
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Three issues. 
DAIL JONES 
: I have it here. It has two measures on it. The first is the commencement date which is neither here nor there and the second is the Bayswater Marina - North Shore matter. The amendment to clause 117 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill amends section 24 of the Conservation Act as set out in schedule 3 of that Act. The member for North Shore has distorted the truth in this House. There were only two issues on that Supplementary Order Paper and it is very clear that the member for North Shore voted against the interests of the residents of his electorate on that particular issue. He is trying to backpedal now. I have voted in this House against the party I belonged to before today. I have crossed the floor on an issue that was important. The National member for North Shore was not prepared to do that in the interests of his electorate and its people. He is now trying to come up with some flimsy excuse for not doing that.  
It is a privilege to be a member of Parliament and especially a New Zealand First member of Parliament because New Zealand First has shown leadership on this issue to all the other Opposition parties. Obviously we have the only leader of the Opposition in this House in the Rt Hon Winston Peters. This has been very interesting legislation. When I was put on the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee everyone said to me that I would be working terribly hard and that it would be a difficult job. But then my alternative on the Justice and Electoral Committee would have been the Civil Union Bill. I am really delighted to have worked on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill instead of that bill; it has been a real pleasure to do so in comparison with the Civil Union Bill. I wish the members on the Justice and Electoral Committee very well.  
There has been a lot of talk about racism and one law for all and this legislation has been described as racist and suchlike. Let us examine where we came from in the NgatiApa case. The New Zealand Court of Appeal in determining that case applied English common law which applies to New Zealand. It is one law for all; English common law is applicable to everybody. The Court of Appeal in that case stated that Maori people in New Zealand had customary rights. Based on what the National Party member has just said the Court of Appeal must have been racist to suggest that one race had customary rights and the other race did not have any such rights. That is the clear inference of the National Party and other Opposition parties to the House on this legislation.  
New Zealand First and the Labour Party believing in one law for all applied the English common law as set out in the Court of Appeal decision and have given effect to it. New Zealand First made it very clear at the very outset on 25 June 2003 that it would support any move to ensure that the Crown had legal title to the foreshore and seabed. That is what this legislation does. We said again that Maori traditional rights of use must be protected but that those rights could not be extended to property ownership on the basis of race. This legislation protects those rights based on the decision in the NgatiApa case on the common law protecting Maori customary rights. That was our policy and we have carried it out. We also said that all Governments must be fair and neutral on matters of race and that is really the genesis of Part 4 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. We will wait and see in the fullness of time just how effective it is. I believe that it will throw up quite a few surprises for people who have been laughing at it at the present time.  
At no time did the Court of Appeal state that the Crown no longer owns the foreshore and seabed. This legislation has carried out New Zealand First’s policy and has ensured that the public foreshore and seabed is vested in the Crown that rights of access and rights of navigation to the public are protected and that individual fishing rights are protected. That is apart from the Treaty of Waitangi settlements; I am referring to clause 7A of the bill. If someone who is on the side of a wharf wants to throw a line over it or if someone who is on the beach wants to throw a line into the sea that person can continue to do so as usual. There was some doubt about it. We heard the submissions and we put a special clause into the bill clause 7A in order to make that clear.  
In keeping with the Court of Appeal decision and with our view customary rights orders for whanau hapu and iwi based on occupation from 1840 in a substantially uninterrupted way will be available for customary use in the Maori Land Court. The year 1840 is important because Professor McHugh who lectured us at the select committee made it very clear that we had to have a date set out. There was a choice between the Canadian system which would have taken the date much further back or the Australian system in which the date of sovereignty would be 1840—the year in which the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in New Zealand. That date was set and that is the reason why it is there. Of course the Court of Appeal also discussed what are now called territorial customary rights. It has set a very high standard when we look at what Professor McHugh had to say. An extraordinarily high standard is required and that is why the Court of Appeal stated in its decision that very few cases would be successful in obtaining that type of right. The Court of Appeal gave an example of a few rocky places out at sea that may be successful in that respect.  
Some people might have said that because the issue was going to be very difficult they would ignore it altogether. But New Zealand First wanted to enforce the common law. We have codified the common law in this legislation. I must say that the officials who worked on this legislation—the parliamentary counsel the members of the staff of the Government departments and suchlike and our adviser—were of the highest calibre that I have ever seen in my parliamentary career and this is my fourth term in Parliament as some members know. I must congratulate them; they were absolutely excellent. They were asked some of the most impossible questions and they came up with the answers straight away. It was a classic example of how nowadays in New Zealand we have very well-trained people—and dare I say it they are all getting younger and brighter. It is really remarkable. It is a great credit to this country and to its future that we have people of that calibre in New Zealand. They helped me immensely during the course of the select committee deliberations.  
As I have said we also ensured that there were territorial customary rights and that it was a very strict test. It seems to me as a lawyer that if we give people a very difficult hurdle like having to climb 1½ Mount Everests and if they climb without oxygen by the time they succeed they ought to get something at the end of the day. Originally the legislation was vague on that issue and I discussed that with the other members of the select committee. We heard the submissions—we heard from about 1000 people altogether. This legislation is full of answers to the questions raised by submitters up and down the country. We listened to them and that is why there are so many amendments to the bill. The National Party and other parties have criticised the number of amendments. There are amendments to the bill because we listened to the people of New Zealand who came before the select committee. It would take me at least an hour to go through all the submissions and answer all the questions that were raised. so I just say that in passing. Of course our staff had to work on the amendments in a way that would make sense. At the end of the day someone who wins a case ought to get something and the provisions for foreshore and seabed reserve and guardianship express the view of the committee. And of course there can be discussions with the Minister.  
The issue of the foreshore and seabed is very simple. The Court of Appeal made a decision. It set out the common law rights. Parliament took them up. We have made sure that the foreshore and seabed belong to the Crown because that was always the law. The legislation has included customary rights orders for Maori groups. It has a territorial customary right order which is a very very heavy test to pass. Of course there is Part 4 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill that has ensured one law for all. There has been a lot of huff and puff around the whole issue. It is unfortunate that for a while there was a public domain issue. Mr Dunne made a very good point about how people should have got together and discussed the issue. He mentioned the Labour Party dealing with the National Party. But the National Party was not willing to talk so the Labour Party came to see New Zealand First as the next-largest party in this House. We had set out our view earlier and we have maintained that view throughout. We said what we meant in June 2003 and we persisted with it. It is the correct view. There was a problem. We analysed the case and came up with a solution. Could we fix it? Yes we could—and we did. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 A tuatahi he mihi maioha ki te koroheke e takoto mai anai te marae kei Turangawaewae. Takoto e koro moe mai okioki. 
[ 
In the first instance a loving tribute to the elder lying in state at the Turangawaewae Marae. May the elder lie there sleep rest 
.]  
I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of a grand uncle Tumate Charlie Mahuta who is now lying in state at Turangawaewae Marae. As his net is cast aside I guess people are getting ready to cast a new net. When people reflect on this issue of foreshore and seabed they probably will never appreciate the crossroad that the country had come to in May this year. It was a time when the country had a real opportunity to confront the travesty of its own history and not to repeat the same mistakes. Instead fear-driven statements and articles took the headlines and the media. Now it is fish and chip paper. So what will people remember? I think some will think that not enough change has occurred and some will think that some has today. One has to wonder whether we will ever learn from the mistakes of history. But we all know here today as parliamentarians that politics is the art of the possible. 
The question of moving common law rights into statute was bound to challenge any Government. The foreshore and seabed legislation has had a tumultuous journey from beginning to end right up until this point. The level of opposition from Maori is a concern and should be an ongoing concern for every member in this House. When we have legislation that protects existing private property interests compensates local authorities for the removal of their interests and introduces a protection mechanism for Maori customary rights that they do not agree with one can bet these matters will have to be revisited.  
All that is required to pass this legislation is the consent of Maori and that has not occurred when it mattered most. Notwithstanding that it is no good just to recognise the problem. We have to work in Parliament and in Government to be able to effect some change. I have worked hard through the parliamentary process to try to effect as much change as possible. I will highlight some of the causes that I believe may be opportunities for Maori in the Government Supplementary Order Paper.  
Firstly I refer to new clause 2A the object clause in the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. It provides for the protection of all citizens’ rights having first provided for and protected Maori connection to the take tai moana. It is an implicit statement of a fiduciary responsibility on the Crown. Clause 11 makes it absolutely clear that the full legal and beneficial ownership of the foreshore and seabed is confirmed in the Crown and does not affect the customary rights provided for in Parts 3 and 4 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. That again reinforces that there is an inherent fiduciary obligation.  
New clause 28 in that bill recognises customary rights which in effect are customary title. It is the clause that may have to be revisited at some point because the test to confer a territorial customary right is based on the contiguous land test which in itself is a very high threshold. Even Dr Paul McHugh indicated that while contiguous ownership is likely to be necessary it may not be in itself sufficient. I think that consideration should also be given to tikanga in fixing the scope of evidence back to 1840 in order to award a territorial customary right. I hope such matters can be taken care of by the High Court and I believe that at some point this matter will need to be revisited.  
The inclusion of a redress measure is also a positive gain and many members before me have talked about the provision of a foreshore and seabed reserve. It is largely based on the Okahu Bay model and more accurately transfers decision making back to local peoples and that is where it should be.  
The final clause is the protection mechanism that ensures that all treaty settlements past present and future will not be affected by this legislation. This gives an absolute undertaking to those outstanding claimants that their ability to reach a negotiated outcome whatever it may be is protected. There are many outstanding claims throughout the whole of the Tainui electorate. Notably so are the outstanding claims for Hauraki Waikato and Maniapoto along their respective coastlines. But there are many more claims in other iwi so this clause protects all their interests.  
It is my sincere hope that the territorial customary rights or customary title as I would call it can be awarded. Only time will tell. I hope this Parliament does not wait too long to address two fundamental issues to enable access to justice via the mechanisms proposed in this legislation. First is the matter of legal aid. I believe we should support groups applicants to take cases to the High Court and second to get a reconsideration of the contiguous land test to establish a territorial customary right which I commented on earlier.  
I expect that many New Zealanders are listening to this debate. Many will be Maori all will be New Zealanders and many will be disappointed with the lack of progress. This is the world we live in. We can be effective only if we continue to find ways forward that bring peoples together and move them forward together respecting one another’s difference and diversity and where their starting points are. More needs to be done in this area and it takes the commitment of the whole of this Parliament. Violence simply will not do neither will a civil war. We already know through world events that this is not a solution. It is unacceptable and none of us should tolerate it anywhere on any issue in New Zealand.  
I know that the legislation is not supported by the confederation of iwi in Tainu. Waikato Maniapoto Hauraki and Raukawa do not agree with many of the mechanisms contained in it. They have not really had the chance to hear it. I suspect their path will be one of a negotiated treaty settlement outcome. The door is open for them and I will continue to work hard on behalf of the Tainui electorate to assist and support them. I regret that a better process did not secure a more comprehensive mandate of whanau hapu and iwi whose rights this legislation fundamentally affects. It is for this reason that I will not be standing on the Labour Party list and the electorate will have the final word on this at the next election on my ability to represent them in the Tainui electorate.  
This bill does not need my support to pass. My decision to support the Government is pure pragmatism a political judgment and it seems to me that by taking this step the door is open for the electorate of Tainui for all constituents for all iwi whanau and hapu to work with a Government that is committed to trying to get things right and we all have to start somewhere. 
No reira ko ngakorerowhakamutunga mai itokutupuna a Mahutai te waikonei ia “I haere Maori atu i hoki Maori mai.” Ana i te mutunga ka hoki katoa tatou ki te kainga. Ka mutu. Kia ora. 
[ 
So my ancestor’s final words when he was here were: “I went as a Maori I came back as a Maori.” In the end we will eventually all return home. I end here. Thank you 
.] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last call will be split into two 5-minute speeches. 
MAHARA OKEROA (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
Tuatahi kei te kopikopikoai te mahunga o teneina te tamaiti o Parihaka ki te tihi o Maunga Taupiri e raukawakawaana e piuaai e nga hau e wha. 
[ 
Firstly the mind of this child of Parihaka meanders to the peak of Taupiri Mountain shrouded there by the mantle of grief and the buffeting of the four winds.] 
I stand in the House today to show my support for the third reading of the foreshore and seabed legislation. It is about protecting the rights of my tamariki and my mokopuna and of everybody else’s mokopuna because that is the litmus test. It is inevitable that one day they will ask me to tell a story—a story about the foreshore and seabed and about the challenges that I my colleagues and others overcame. They will ask me why people made such a fuss over legislation that cemented Maori rights in law and why parties tried to stop the Government from preserving the rights they now enjoy. 
More important they will say: “E koro why did you support the foreshore and seabed legislation?”. I will say to them: “Moko we fought for you. We fought for your rights. We wanted you too to enjoy the freedoms we enjoyed when we were growing up. We wanted you to be able to do the things we have always done on the beaches of Aotearoa nui atu without a worry in the world.” I will tell them we supported that legislation so many years ago so that the tikanga of our people would be recognised acknowledged and respected. 
They will then ask me: “Why did other parties try to stop you from protecting our rights to the foreshore and seabed?”. I will tell them: “My colleagues and I believed in uniting Aotearoa New Zealand. We believed that the foreshore and seabed legislation would enable New Zealanders Maori and non-Maori to feel a sense of certainty about the use of the foreshore and seabed.” I will tell them that Don Brash and the National Party just did not—could not—understand the significant relationship that we as Maori and others have with the foreshore and seabed. They did not want our rights cemented in legislation; they wanted Maori rights to disappear altogether. They ignored Maori rights. 
My mokopuna will then ask me: “E pa who was Don Brash?”. “Well moko” I will say “he was a man who had one hit one wonder speech but you are not to worry too much about the history of Don Brash because he didn’t do anything special in the short time he spent as leader of the Opposition.” 
My moko will then say to me: “Koro the kids at our kura asked us who the Maori caucus was.” I will tell them that the members of the Maori caucus in the Labour Party were people who fronted up for the rights of Maori and also for the rights of non-Maori—rights that they now enjoy. Those members did not walk away; they did not shirk the huge challenges both political and personal. The message in that is that if you are to be a politician stay in the tent and fight the good fight.” 
My moko will also ask me: “What was the foreshore and seabed legislation all about?” I will tell them that it was legislation that did more for Maori than any other legislation could ever do. I will tell them it was about finding a solution that would strengthen the whole nation and take us forward as a country about giving certainty security fairness and balance about protecting the customary rights and interests of Maori in the foreshore and seabed and about making bloody sure that everyone would still be able to have access to the foreshore and seabed. 
 Finally my moko might ask me: “Did you know the Rt Rev. Winston Peters?” and I would be taken away with a gasp. Some people may see him as that but I would have to correct my moko and say he was not the right reverend but the right honourable. They might say: “Can you tell us about him?” and I would say: “I can tell you moko that he and his party supported this legislation into law. To say otherwise moko would mean another storytelling session about the life of Winitana Peters.”  
Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou. There is a proverb in Maoridom that says: “Hinga atu te tangata whanau mai te tangata kei te harurutonungangaru kei te pikitonu te tai kei te heketonu te tai—it does not matter what happens to man. They are born and they die. But you will hear the waves and the tides go back and forward forever.” 
I will acknowledge some of the comments that have been made by my colleague Mahara Okeroa. A little while ago there was a hikoi. It was a time that we had to make a decision. Our people were carried down here on a wave of emotion. A lot of that emotion was innocent a lot of it was misinformed and a lot of the people did not know the facts. Some people opted out during that emotional tide and jumped the waka. 
My colleagues and I thought about it very deeply because we also were caught up in that emotion and that tide. We sat down and talked together and had a karakia together and we made our decision together. To fly the white flag and to surrender was not an option for us. We knew that we had to stay in fight the good fight and represent our people. We were not going to surrender. That was not the nature of our tupuna who fought in the Maori Battalion when they were faced with unbelievable odds. We believed that if we stayed with the Government—if we stayed aboard the waka—we could better the future for our people. For those who decided to jump the waka kei te pai that is their business but for us as a Maori caucus we were determined to stay because we understood the political reality of the options. 
We heard an option presented by the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon. He said he could have fixed this issue very simply with some sort of bipartisan approach to amendment of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act—that that would have been a simple way to go. I want to reiterate to some of the bush lawyers members of the Green Party and the Maori Party that that was a real option—to have a bipartisan approach to amend Te Ture Whenua Maori Act so that it was clear that the intention of Parliament at that time was that the Maori Land Court did not have jurisdiction at all to hear the case involving seabed and foreshore. 
I believe that there was no intention of Parliament at the time that the Maori Land Court have jurisdiction under the sea and on the seabed. But if that had happened it would have reconfirmed absolute Crown ownership. That is what would have happened—Gerry Brownlee agrees with that; I can see him nodding his head—because that was deemed to be the situation before the Court of Appeal decision. Three previous pieces of legislation indicated that. We saw that and we looked at it very carefully and we said to ourselves that we would not waka-jump because we would not betray and desert our people in times of need. The rest is history. 
We have battled into the late hours. I pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister for the way that he handled the negotiations. He knew that we had a different position. I pay tribute to him and to the chair of the select committee Russell Fairbrother. We took a lot of flack in the select committee. We were called niggers and traitors. One of the female employees working for the select committee who is employed by the Clerk of the House was even assaulted by a member of the Maori Party and supporters of the Maori Party. It was an insult to the process. And those people talk about karakia and tangihanga and the love of the land! 
I am proud to be part of this Labour Maori caucus and this Government. I have always believed that it will do the right thing by our people. Tonight I am the final speaker and I want to thank the Government the Labour Maori caucus Dail Jones and the New Zealand First Party. No reira kei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Tena koutou tena koutou kia ora mai anotatou katoa. Kia ora tatou. 
[ 
And so I acknowledge you all. Greetings to you and to us all. Thank you 
.] 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Foreshore and Seabed Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Progressive 2. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand National 27; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
The House adjourned at 4.50 p.m. (Thursday)