Turei Metiria: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17235] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 How typical it is of the Minister in the chair the Hon Christopher Finlayson to get as personal as that in this debate. I find it to be completely without dignity that he would speak about other members of the Committee like that. I disagree very strongly with Hilary Calvert and with much of the language that she has used today in this debate but I do not think there is any place for that kind of personal nasty attack. Not only is it undignified but it belittles the Minister to be engaged in that kind of behaviour in the Chamber over an issue that is as serious as the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill which there is no doubt that everyone has a very strong view about even if one disagrees with another member’s view. 
I will address Part 2 of the bill briefly. One of the issues is that in clause 11 a statement has come up which I think it is made later on in the bill as well. Clause 11(2) states: “Neither the Crown nor any other person owns or is capable of owning the common marine and coastal area”. I will repeat that: “Neither the Crown nor any other person owns or is capable of owning the common marine and coastal area”. That is a legal fallacy. That does not actually exist in New Zealand law. The process of colonisation was one whereby the two principles of imperium and dominion were brought to Aotearoa through colonisation by the British Crown imperium being the right to rule and dominion being the right of the Crown to have underlying ownership over all the land. Over time that right has been effectively passed on through various systems and constitutional niceties—and not quite such niceties—so that in effect it now belongs to the Government to exercise on behalf of the Crown as its ownership right. 
So when a law states that nobody owns the coastal and marine area that is not true; it is just factually incorrect. The ownership of Aotearoa through the colonisation process rests with the State and with the executive. Having that kind of rubbish in legislation is bad enough. That people are passing legislation that just does not tell the truth about the factual basis of landownership in this country is historical fallacy. But that also leads me to challenge the Maori Party. 
I ask that the Maori Party members be prepared to stand up to defend the statement they made earlier today that they are proud of this legislation and that this bill is a Maori Party bill. I ask them to say how they can argue that this bill is a Maori Party bill say they are proud of it and say they will vote for it when we have a legal fallacy here around ownership and when the whole basis of Maori issues around the foreshore and seabed is that there could still be areas of extant customary title as set out in the common law and that is ownership. That is ownership and that is what customary title tikanga title is about: it is about ownership. Now the tikanga way of describing and talking about the responsibilities of ownership is different and Maori have tried to get the message through to the Government to members and to the public that it is not as much about the right to do with the land as one chooses as it is about the responsibility to care for it for the future. The concepts of what ownership means might be quite different but it is hard to have to use the English language to describe these concepts when ownership is an issue. 
Maori have come to the Maori Affairs Committee to the panel and to select committees in years gone by to say they want their right to be restored to go to court to assert their customary title ownership in tikanga terms. If that is what Maori have said and if the premise on which the Maori Party was built was respect for that principle respect for that call by Maori to assert their customary title ownership in tikanga terms then how can the Maori Party members in any kind of conscience stand here to say they are proud of legislation that specifically strips Maori of that right? This bill says no person is capable of ownership of the customary marine area yet Maori have said over and over that they want to have the right to be able to test and to assert their customary title ownership in tikanga terms. The Maori Party members’ votes will determine whether this legislation proceeds and therefore whether the confiscation of this land and the extinguishment of that right will continue. I think that those members owe it to Maori who have supported them and whose call the Maori Party is here to respect to explain why they can now vote against the rights of Maori to assert their customary title ownership in tikanga terms and in the fullness of those tikanga terms. 
At the same time as we are debating this bill a hikoi is making its way through the country. A large number of Maori have made their way from the north. I understand that they are at Hato Petera College this evening and are making their way into Tamaki-makau-rau tomorrow. The premise of this hikoi and of the hikoi on which the establishment of the Maori Party was based—and Tariana Turia in previous years met the parent hikoi the mother hikoi of the present one if you like some years ago—is the same premise: that the foreshore and seabed should not be confiscated and that Maori rights should not be extinguished. “Not one more acre” is the call of this hikoi just as it was of the last hikoi. Those whanau who are making their way through the country to demonstrate their opposition to this bill deserve to be given an answer from their representatives in this Parliament. They deserve to be given an answer from those who have said in the past that they would stand up and fight for their right to have their rights recognised and to oppose the confiscation and extinguishment of those rights. Those people are entitled to an answer as to why the Maori Party is prepared to take those rights away. 
This issue is not easy. It is difficult particularly for Maori and for Maori MPs just as it was last time. This is a difficult debate and it is especially difficult to hear some of the very crass comments that we have heard in the debate tonight. There is no doubt about that. But our people deserve to get answers. Our people deserve to be told by their representatives here why they are voting for a confiscation and why the Maori Party members are voting to remove any capacity for the ownership that Maori have been asserting now since 2003 or before that through the Ngati Apa decision for many years now—for a decade or more. 
I ask the Maori Party to take a call and to answer the question— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Good luck. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Shane Jones is quite right. I am not holding out a lot of hope. I certainly will not be holding my breath as Hilary Calvert suggested we should do from 1840. I will not be holding my breath but I do think the Maori Party owes it to our people to give them an explanation. If it was genuinely proud of this legislation as Rahui Katene said it was it would stand up and defend its position and explain to our people who are marching through the country as we speak why they have to march at all. Why is the Maori Party supporting this legislation at this time when it knows and it has said publicly that this bill is bad? It has said this bill will not be effective and does not give justice to our people so why does the Maori Party support it? 
Hon Shane Jones 
: That’s why the rangatahi are changing their mind. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: It is also why our kuia and kaumatua are very disappointed in their political representation. 
We are getting down to the nub of this issue: that there is customary title which the courts have said could still exist in the foreshore and seabed that predates the colonisation of this country if you like that that title should be explored and that Maori who believe they may hold it are entitled to go to court to have their case heard. Yet the Maori Party is stripping them of that right. There is no doubt that this is very serious— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: The Labour Party? The National Party. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: The Maori Party is stripping that right from those hapu who came to us. It is personal to some extent as well. I sat with Tariana Turia on the foreshore and seabed select committee in 2004 and I remember us both weeping together over the harm that was being caused to our people.