Brownlee Gerry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16964] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 This is where Parliament will start to untangle the extraordinary spin that the Deputy Prime Minister has put about in the last couple of days suggesting that this amended bill—because Supplementary Order Paper 302 is not really a Supplementary Order Paper; it is a fully amended bill—will solve and salve all the problems and concerns that many New Zealanders have. 
We see in it this tricky little idea of inserting a new clause 2A “Object”. That is a Dail Jones initiative and in it there is a paragraph that almost contradicts itself. 
Darren Hughes 
: It must have been written by the National Party. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Mr Hughes the confused member on the other side of the Chamber is saying that it must have been written by a party other than Labour. It was; it was written by New Zealand First and frankly the New Zealand First member should be sitting in the Minister’s chair because this amended bill is his work. 
We have here a problem insomuch as whereas the object is supposedly to put the foreshore and seabed into Crown ownership for the people of New Zealand the Government equally wants to say that the foreshore and seabed can be dealt away in deals with Maori provided that the High Court of New Zealand agrees with that. That seems to me to be a very weak protection given the sort of judicial activism in this area that we have seen in the last few years. Is it not extraordinary that on a bill that is a result of just that sort of judicial activism we end up seeing an old lawyer Dail Jones trying to solve the problem by once again creating the opportunity for these things to go back before a court? 
It is a problem insomuch as this is the part of the bill that also makes it very clear to non-Maori New Zealanders that they have fewer rights to undertake activity on the foreshore and seabed of this country than Maori do. That is undeniable. That is quite undeniable because unless one is Maori one cannot go to the High Court to talk about a customary right or a customary use. 
Dail Jones 
: That’s not true. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is true. The bill excludes it particularly. [ 
Interruption 
] Here is a question for “Minister” Dail Jones to stand up and answer. This is his cunning out; this is his out on this argument. He is saying that I am wrong because if non-Maori were here before 1840 and they had established some sort of activity that continues today they could get a customary right but if one came after 1840 one can forget about it. The fact is the vast majority of people in this country arrived here after 1840—or their ancestors did—and their activities commenced after that time. These people think they are very clever by saying that anyone can go for a customary right provided that it happened before 1840. Well that is the divisive aspect of this bill that will do damage to this Government. I tell Mr Samuels that it is quite inappropriate in the year 2004 to tell New Zealanders that they cannot be considered equal to Maori in their love of the coastline of this country because their ancestors were not here before 1840. That is a nonsense. 
It is as big a nonsense as saying that Maori can claim the seabed out to the territorial limit which did not exist prior to 1967. That is another little piece that has been put in place by Winston Peters. Last night he was claiming that New Zealanders will thank him for his great work on this measure. Although we know that Mr Jones has done the work we know that Mr Jones would not breathe without Mr Peters telling him he can and the reality is that this measure very much will be sheeted home to him. He is the man who has decided that this Parliament will pass a bill that separates Maori and non-Maori when it comes to consideration of activities on the coastline of this country.