Cullen Michael: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
Cullen Michael: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
[Volume:614;Page:10485] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That this House establish a committee to consider and report to it on such fisheries and other sea-related legislation that may be referred to it; the committee to consist of 10 members to be nominated by parties to the Speaker as follows: New Zealand Labour 4 New Zealand National 2 New Zealand First 1 Green Party 1 ACT New Zealand 1 and United Future 1; and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 193 and 196 (1 )(b) and (c). 
This is moved primarily for three reasons. The first is that both this bill that we have just been discussing and a number of other bills are bills in which all political parties have a keen interest and should be involved with in terms of the considerations of the select committee. The only two select committees that have all-party representation at present are the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Standing Orders Committee. I think that by no stretch of the imagination would anybody care to suggest that the Waitangi fisheries settlement legislation should be referred to the Standing Orders Committee and probably not the Finance and Expenditure Committee either. 
Secondly these are all matters in which there is deep Maori interest in particular. It is appropriate therefore to give parties the chance to nominate members to the select committee with a particular emphasis upon the Maori membership of the House. 
The third matter is that the bills that are likely to be referred to the select committee have a degree of common ground between them—that is the fisheries settlement legislation the foreshore and seabed legislation and probably the aquaculture legislation and I would think that we also need to consider the marine reserves legislation as coming into that category. 
 And what particularly will be in common to those apart from many of the issues is that many of the submitters on those bills will have very much in common. There will be a very strong interest with all those bills in submissions from iwi and hapu groups and other Maori organisations. The select committee may wish to be able to partake of the possibility—given that some of these bills will be running alongside each other in terms of actual time—of being able to travel the country and take submissions on a range of bills simultaneously from particular groups. This will facilitate that process. Otherwise what would happen is that the Waitangi fisheries legislation would probably go to the Maori Affairs Committee the foreshore and seabed legislation—goodness knows where that would go appropriately. The Marine Reserves Bill would go to the Local Government and Environment Committee almost certainly; and the aquaculture legislation would go to the Primary Production Committee. Therefore they would have been split all over the place in terms of the select committees dealing with those matters. 
The third element is that almost certainly in terms of the foreshore and seabed legislation we would have sought to set up a separate select committee. As I said it does not fit easily into any other committee and given the very strong interest of all parties I am sure in that issue but again the particular interest of Maori in that issue there are problems in running select committees if a separate committee is set up while other mainline committees are continuing major work in the meantime. The whips will be particularly aware—certainly the Government whips are—of the difficulty of running the number of people involved in select committees in that case. By forming a separate select committee we are able to ensure that one or two other select committees will have their workloads significantly reduced. They will not need to meet so often over the coming months while this special select committee is under way. 
It is going to be a very important select committee because of the nature of the legislation before it. In some ways a good deal of this legislation will reflect issues about the nature of our nation and its identity and the way forward in that respect. I wish it well. Because of the bulk of the work that is going to be involved the greater amount of work I think the suggestion certainly in my own mind is that there are going to be a lot of submissions so that the committee will need to meet outside the normal one morning a week sitting times for a select committee to enable that range of submissions to be heard while progress is being made. 
Particularly in terms of the bill we have just been considering the message I have loud and clear is that the momentum now needs to be continued and carried through to conclusion. We have been waiting 11 years so far for a settlement of the division of the fisheries settlement. We cannot now as a House delay the process for year upon year while the select committee wends its way through a large number of submissions with only meetings in a relatively limited amount of time per week. We need to get on and make sure that now people can make progress based on the resources that are available.