Dunne Peter: Foreshore and Seabed Bill Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Dunne Peter: Foreshore and Seabed Bill Resource Management (Foreshore and Seabed) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:621;Page:17196] 
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.