Horomia Parekura: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Horomia Parekura: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17326] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 I thought I would take up some cutting remarks made in relation to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. Certainly as Dr Cullen said and as I have heard the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General say earlier in the debate Labour did want to get to a better place and we can concede in all humility that maybe we could have done better in our time. But we have got to the stage now where we need to confront those issues that are relevant to taking this issue forward and Part 3 suggests a whole lot of matters and issues that need to be clarified. 
It has worried me at times that some people have let rip with extremes and have tested people’s minds and manners by making extreme statements. Some people say that this bill is about Alice-in-Wonderland practices that Maori do not know anything about customary rights and that they would have had to hold their noses underwater. They are the sorts of outrageous statements we can do without. 
I also get a bit perturbed. Sitting outside in front of the hikoi that day is etched on my mind especially as some of my whanau were on the other side. The challenges that were tossed at Labour in relation to our denying Maori access to court are now being fudged. The Maori Party members who at that time professed that Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Bill was totally wrong because of that denial of access are now supporting the same sort of stance. I am really interested in the fact that they are saying this bill is not National’s bill but theirs and they are proud of it. I really wonder at the end of the day what there is to be proud about in relation to this bill in the sense of where it is at the moment. 
The Minister’s Supplementary Order Papers have been very interesting. He has been telling tales on me to my uncle Api on what I am saying and whatever else. He is a real nark at times and I take umbrage at that too. 
The purpose of Part 3 is to set out the full extent— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: But you support Te Ropu Ripa. Come on! You support Mallard. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: What I did not support was the 500-page report being rushed through the Maori Affairs Committee by its chair allowing no legal advice or legal content or direction by members. That is what I object to. 
The purpose of Subpart 1 of Part 3 is in relation to participation in conservation processes. I say to the Minister that one of the issues in Part 3 that really does concern me is the mixture and the composition of the decision making. There seems to be an illogical matrix of points of decision. The Minister of Conservation the Minister for the Environment the Maoris sometimes the court authorities and some of the ideology of the Resource Management Act are crammed together. I hope that by the time we get to the end of the debate we can decipher some of that and that the bill is more specific than Part 3 is starting to be. 
There are a whole lot of issues. In relation to Subpart 2 “Protected customary rights” those rights are described in clause 53 as rights that have been exercised since 1840. I would like to know how we are going to exercise that definition. Is it about Maori kids running and jumping in the water like their ancestors did in 1840 and having continuously swum there dived underneath to see what is in the water and gathered food there? Is that enough? Clause 53(1)(b) states that a protected customary right is a right that “continues to be exercised in a particular part of the common marine and coastal area in accordance with tikanga by the applicant group” and clause 53(1)(c) states that it “is not extinguished as a matter of law.” All through the provisions including in Part 3 there is a real push about tikanga. It is interesting as we read the parts to see how tikanga is defined and who defines it. Some clauses of Part 3 suggest that tikanga can be defined by the applicant group by the hapu or the iwi involved or it can be determined by the sanction of the Director-General of Conservation and so on and so forth. 
To push that further if we look at clause 53(3) we see that it states that “An applicant group”—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Chair! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: You want another call? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Yes thanks. Another two if you do not mind. Is that all right? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will judge that. One at a time. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: It states that “An applicant group does not need to have an interest in land in or abutting the specified part of the common marine and coastal area in order to establish protected customary rights.” What my learned colleague from Te Tai Tokerau Kelvin Davis said was interesting. There are learned members from Te Tai Tokerau here who know where their waka came from and have a sincere sense of belonging to Te Tai Tokerau. I mihi to him. [ 
Interruption 
] He is not like Paul Quinn sitting in that far-away land over there and he is not like Tau Henare over there who rushed the report through the Maori Affairs Committee. My mokopuna are from Te Tai Tokerau and I am thankful that there are decent members of this House from Te Tai Tokerau. Kelvin Davis knows where his waka came from; he is not inventing it like that member over there. 
If we look at clause 53(3) we see that it states that “An applicant group does not need to have an interest in land in or abutting”— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Can I just caution the member. The nature of the exchange that has gone on was such that the member was implying that some people in this Chamber are not decent. All members are honourable members. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I stand corrected Mr Chair. Thank you. I want to tell members about the waka  
Mataatua 
. The member with his fist raised in the air believes that the waka  
Mataatua 
 stayed in Tai Tokerau—that it lived there. The member on his left— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Where’s this in the bill? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: This is very important to Part 3 I say to Simon Power. I want him to listen to this. When we define tikanga and we define aspirations and we determine what is right or wrong in Maoridom we have to understand that there may be four or five different versions and they are all right. How will the court manage that? The bloke up there on the left would say that the  
Mataatua 
 waka rested in Tai Tokerau in the Hokianga and sits there. The bloke on his left would say that no it rests down by Whakatane or Opotiki. They are both right. How does one recognise that? 
I want to get on to this land business in the sense of supporting the test. The contiguousness that was a really strong reference in the 2004 legislation is I hope still important because there is some shifty shaking in this bill. It is saying that the customary right does not necessarily have to be where one is living by the seashore or thereabouts. It can be somewhere else. But one of the real key drivers in relation to recognising or simplifying people’s rights and tuku iho is the contiguousness of the dry land that they may have lived on or controlled over generations. What they have done on that land is a different issue. They have inherited it and they have inherited it for one reason: through their whakapapa or their genealogical tie. How is the court or anybody else going to test that? The strength to recognise a lot of that tuku iho or those rights is in that contiguousness if those people have had that whenua. 
Clause 53(1) states that a protected customary right is a right exercised in accordance with tikanga. I want to make the point that tikanga takes all sorts of forms and shapes and that there are alignments like the contiguousness of land to the right to the water that is trying to be defined here. So those iwi who have a lot of land there should be recognised for that. 
The other thing is that clause 54(3) states that a protected customary rights order or an agreement that applies to the customary rights group can be subject to a control imposed by the Minister of Conservation under section 59. Clause 54(4) states: “A protected customary rights group may do any of the following: (a) delegate the rights conferred by a protected customary rights order or an agreement in accordance with tikanga:”. I am not too sure what that means. Does it mean where the  
Mataatua  
waka might have gone or could be? And I say that with a whole lot of respect. Clause 54(4)(b) states: “transfer a protected customary rights order or an agreement in accordance with tikanga:”. Again I ask the Minister who is defining tikanga in relation to those limitations and how. Clause 56 “Limitations on exercise of protected customary rights” states: “(1) A protected customary right does not include any right or title over the part of the common marine and coastal area where the protected customary right is exercised”. So we have this no-people’s park which nobody owns but everybody reckons that is OK and then the bill is saying that nobody can define or determine—