Carter David: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Carter David: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15624] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I also want to ask a question of the Minister about Part 5 “Dispute resolution”. I note from the preceding comments of my colleague Sandra Goudie that the Minister has not been in the habit of answering the questions that have been asked but I hope he will consider doing so on this occasion. 
My issue concerns the area of coastline that is still under dispute. I take the opportunity to congratulate the select committee on the work it has done because the bill as introduced meant that areas that were still under dispute along coastlines tied up the whole allocation for the iwi involved. In an earlier contribution the Hon John Tamihere said that it was National Government’s fault that this matter had taken 12 years to progress. That shows a scant regard for the facts. 
This issue was initiated with the deed of settlement in 1992 and it was acknowledged at the time that it would take some time for Maori themselves to work out how to allocate the resource. Governments could have forced that issue but to do so would have been silly and would have created more problems as I think the Hon Dover Samuels is now acknowledging. What we have done is given Maori themselves time to come to an agreement around allocation. In most cases I suspect particularly regarding the allocation pertaining to coastline we now find that agreement has been reached and that is great. 
But what I want to know from the Minister—and I am hoping he will be able to answer this—is what area is now resolved and what are the areas that are unresolved because then we may have that sort of knowledge and as MPs we are in a position to help facilitate these sorts of resolutions so that further allocation can occur. After all that is what this whole matter is about—it is about making sure that this resource is available for the betterment of Maori. I say good luck to them and we should let them get on with the job. That is why we are here 12 years after the original deed of settlement. But the select committee was clearly of the view that without the very sensible amendment that it came to the allocation process was unnecessarily tied up so that over an area of perhaps 1000 kilometres of coastline there was general agreement on say 950 kilometres but there was a dispute over the remaining 50 kilometres. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Give the other 50 to Pakeha. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Dover Samuels is extremely generous tonight. I wonder whether he has been upstairs to the ninth floor to make sure he has had that approved. [ 
Interruption 
] NoI do not think he has but I thank him for his generosity even though it was not well meant. 
The issue around dispute resolution and the change that occurred in the select committee now mean that the allocation in the case I have just given can occur with 99.5 percent of the resource and there can be further discussions to try to resolve the differences on the remaining 50 kilometres. So that is a vast improvement. It would be helpful if the Minister could take a call and define the amount of coastline involved that is still tied up in dispute. It does not look as though he will take a call. I was certainly hopeful that the Minister might answer a few questions but no. We are in the Committee stage debating the Maori Fisheries Bill and Mr David Benson-Pope is the Minister in the chair—and there is little point in asking questions if he is intent on ignoring them or refusing to answer.