Scott Lynda: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Scott Lynda: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17001] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I have also been waiting for a long time to take a call on this bill and I wish to do so because I am the MP for Kaikoura which includes all of Marlborough and North Canterbury and this whole debate began with the decision about the foreshore in the Marlborough Sounds. The drawing of that line in the sand was what led us to the discussions we have had in the select committee and to our debating today in the Chamber a Supplementary Order Paper that nobody had a chance to see and digest until very very recently. 
I listened to the speeches that have gone before me. John Tamihere said that Maori have not wanted freehold title. That is certainly not my understanding of what was happening with the Marlborough Sounds seabed. Maori definitely wanted freehold title. I had people come into my office and say that when there was no land and no fish no one cared but now they did care they did want that land and they did want title—it was not just about guardianship. People have now moved to the concept of guardianship for about 10 percent of the foreshore and seabed but there was definitely an intention to have freehold title. When the  
Attorney-General  
v 
 Ngati Apa 
 decision provided that there was a possibility that private ownership of the foreshore and seabed could be granted—that it could go to the Maori Land Court—action had to be taken. That had never been the intention in the past in our history. Until the Resource Management Act came in most New Zealanders had supposed that the foreshore and seabed were in Crown ownership. It had not been an issue until that time. 
I heard Mahara Okeroa talking about people being denied access to a certain area of Maori land in Nelson because he said people were not treating it correctly. When my own parents-in-law were down in the Arahura Valley on the West Coast where pounamu is gathered they were denied access one time when they were just wanting to take a stroll along the river. That is what has been beginning to happen around New Zealand. People have been denied access. I was in the Chatham Islands and went out for a run on the beach and was told I was on private property. I and all other New Zealanders have grown up with the concept of the Queen’s Chain the concept that we can walk down a beach without restriction so it was a huge surprise to me to be told in the Chatham Islands that someone else owned the foreshore and seabed. 
When one travels overseas one realises that a lot of the foreshore and seabed is privately owned. It brings us back to what it means to be a New Zealander. What it means to be a New Zealander for all the people I talk to in my electorate is to have that access and not be denied it. A huge amount of consternation was generated by the decision to allow Ngati Apa to go to the Maori Land Court because it definitely would have led to a possibility of private individual ownership of and title to that land—or even collective title to that land but one that would deny others access. 
The select committee process did not manage to return a new bill to this House and we now have Supplementary Order Paper 302 which creates in Part 1 a new legal scheme. A new system is being created. The amendment states that legal ownership is in the Crown—preserved in perpetuity for the people of New Zealand—but it is very uncertain about what will happen with the guardianship that can be given if Maori can show continuous rights. That is uncertain. It will be a reserve but will Maori be able to deny access? I ask members to consider the Department of Conservation. Does it allow open access? No it often shuts up areas of land. We will not know.