Finlayson Christopher: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
Finlayson Christopher: Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5035] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 National opposes the second reading of the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill. It says insufficient work has been done on it at the select committee stage to persuade the party that it should support what it regards as defective legislation. Much of the bill is unexceptional. In particular the settlement resolves all of Te Arawa’s historical claims relating to 14 lakes and the remaining annuity issues. It removes the jurisdiction of the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal and the benefits of the settlement are to be available to all members of Te Arawa wherever they may live. 
However I do note that there still remain some outstanding mandate issues. Let me say to the Government that mandate issues cannot be legislated away. If the Crown does not get this issue right it will face ongoing litigation and ill feeling. I tell you Mr Deputy Speaker and the House that the Privy Council is shortly to give its decision in a case involving Ngati Apa. That case raises mandate issues that have been hanging around for 17 years and the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act of 1998 did not legislate those issues away. 
A number of other points about this bill raise real concerns. The first is with regard to that elusive phrase “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” and the second is what I consider to be a dangerous reference in clause 7 to matters of spiritual importance. Of course the Maori Affairs Committee paid no attention to those matters and simply endorsed the bill. So much for the theory that select committees should rigorously examine legislation! Nor has the Minister turned his mind to either of the issues. He simply stood up and read out a speech that ignored key matters and in fact glided over some of the real pitfalls. Probably the issues were beyond the Minister who really is a complete waste of space. His performance in this portfolio is even worse than his performance in the justice portfolio—and that really says something. So the bill has come back to the House and the same defects as were there before are still there. 
I do not intend to spend very much time talking about the first of my concerns. I closely examined the phrase “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” in my first reading speech and I will take that as read. In that speech I outlined nine key or central principles that have been extracted over the years from various cases and reports of the Waitangi Tribunal and I said that it was not too hard to spell out exactly what one is talking about when one refers to the principles of the Treaty. In my first reading speech I criticised the Government’s lazy drafting and poor workmanship with regard to this bill. The fact that the bill has come back to the House in this defective form illustrates the point that the Government is not interested in addressing those issues but simply wants to be rid of the legislation in some formulaic way. Well we think the principles of the Treaty are important. We think they should have been addressed and we are not supporting the second reading of the bill for that reason. 
And I would be very interested to know the position of the New Zealand First members. They too should be opposing the bill given Mr Woolerton’s important but defective Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill which is now before the Justice and Electoral Committee. In my first reading speech on that bill I said that although it was lazily and sloppily drafted it addressed some important issues that need to be addressed concerning the meaning of the phrase “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”. If New Zealand First is to be consistent it too will oppose the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Bill on those grounds—and I hear my friend Anne Tolley the junior Opposition whip laugh because she knows what consistency is all about with regard to New Zealand First. So much for the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. 
I will now focus on one particular concern I have that given the discussions and litigation that have occurred over the years makes it simply negligent to include a particular phrase in this settlement bill. I refer to clause 7(1) of this bill which contains the text of the acknowledgments as set out in the deed of settlement. Of course apologies and acknowledgments should not be contained in legislation—that is a mistake in itself—but the acknowledgment itself is also badly drafted. The first acknowledgment is that the Crown recognises that Te Arawa value the Te Arawa lakes and the lakes’ resources as taonga and the Crown acknowledges the spiritual importance to Te Arawa of the lakes and the lakes’ resources. In the Committee stage I will ask the Minister what that means and how it is to be compared with cultural and traditional importance—not that I will be holding my breath while waiting for a coherent answer from the Minister on that topic or indeed on any topic. 
What I find fascinating is that that phrase is included. Why is there an acknowledgment of spiritual importance? I find it strange that the Government is happy to enact that sort of reference yet it goes out of its way to expunge any references to Christianity. In fact this Government has an abiding hostility to Christianity and especially to the part of Western Christianity that still firmly holds to articles of faith and objective standards of right and wrong. We can see that distaste and indeed hatred manifested in the way Government members constantly make extravagant and untrue remarks about a Christian minority—and it happened tonight—some of whose members dared to challenge the Prime Minister. 
Antichristianity is to Labour Party members today what anti-Semitism was to the Nazis. Mind you they do not really like Jews either. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member’s personal insults mean nothing to me but I take deep offence at the comment he has just made. He has no idea what the personal faith of members on the Government side of the House is. I personally take deep offence at that accusation. The member should simply address this important piece of legislation and stop indulging himself. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: The point I am making Mr Deputy Speaker— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Just withdraw and apologise please and continue. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I withdraw and apologise. The point of the matter is that the Government is very concerned to include phrases along the lines of that one to recognise spiritual values but can members imagine what the response would be if Catholic priests were dispatched by the Government all over the world to bless embassies before they were opened or if we asked the Catholic Archbishop of Wellington to conduct an exorcism of Parliament at the time Parliament opened? Actually that would not be a bad idea because I can think of some Government members who would benefit from an exorcism. 
The point I am making is that this Government while it is doing its best to expunge the Christian religion from our society is enacting that sort of phrase. It wants to do away with the reference to Christ in the opening prayer of the House yet it enacts vague references to Maori spirituality. Respect for undefined spirituality can lead in all sorts of directions and I can do no more than quote from an excellent article by Dr David Round who is a law lecturer at the University of Canterbury. 
In an article entitled “Here Be Dragons” Dr Round states the following about phrases like Maori spirituality: “The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 requires all persons exercising powers and functions under it to take into account the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and also to take into account the relationship of Maori and their culture and their traditions with their traditional lands waters sites wahi tapu valued flora and fauna and other taonga. Acting in accordance with this ERMA”—the Environmental Risk Management Authority—“has established its own Maori advisory committee which maintains that Maori have today and have historically had practices relating to scientific knowledge. The committee has been generally opposed to genetic modification”—it is not alone in that course—“but so far ERMA has declined to accede to its own recommendations.” 
Dr Round gives another example from the present draft of the Aoraki - Mount Cook National Park management plan which proposes to give the Department of Conservation the power to encourage and/or require climbers not to stand on the summit of Mount Cook—the justification being that Mount Cook is the deified ancestor of Ngai Tahu and that standing on the head the most sacred part of the ancestor is disrespectful. 
So vague references to spiritual values can be very dangerous indeed. If phrases like that are to be included—and they should not be—then it should be defined exactly what is being talked about. As Dr Round observed in his article there is a distinct element of condescension in this approach assuming as it does that all Maori still hold to pagan and animist beliefs and that no real Maori could be a Christian. The phrase is inappropriate. 
Why does this Government simply not understand those elementary points? Is there one Labour member who would be prepared to stand up and make a sensible refutation of the points I make? Trevor Mallard was appointed as Coordinating Minister Race Relations to deal with those things but Mr Mallard was just another one of the Prime Minister’s shabby little tricks. She appointed him to do nothing and he succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. Once the election was over the Prime Minister failed to appoint him or anyone else to the coordinating race relations position. 
Those sorts of phrases are unsatisfactory; the situation is unsatisfactory. For those two reasons alone National will oppose this legislation at its second reading. [ 
Interruption 
]