Baldock Larry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Baldock Larry: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17115] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 In my comments on Part 5 I will talk first of all about the Resource Management Act review process that is under way. Most members will know that United Future is working closely with the Government the Minister for the Environment and the Associate Minister for the Environment on a review of the Resource Management Act. Most members of the business community and Resource Management Act practitioners are aware of it because the Minister has been going around the country saying that we are focusing in this review mostly on process and not on substance.  
We have been very careful to tell people that we are not touching Part 2 of the Resource Management Act because it would be difficult if we did. So members can imagine my surprise when I found that through clause 74 “Matters of national importance” we are actually putting into Part 2 of the Act the issue of customary rights orders. We have to ask why we are doing that when we find already under section 6 “Matters of national importance” reference to “The relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands water sites waahi tapu and other taonga.”  
Why is it necessary to add another category of ancestral connection orders? The answer is very simple. It is because New Zealand First and the Government are playing the game of trying to make out that these customary rights orders are for everybody when everyone knows they will actually be only for Maori. The idea that the Auckland regatta could get one which was debated a lot in the debate on Part 4 is absolutely ridiculous. We believe that it would be better if the Government and New Zealand First were simply honest—because honesty is always the best policy—and just told everyone that only Maori will get customary rights orders. That is OK with us in United Future because Maori are entitled to them where customary rights are legitimately proved to have been in existence from 1840. We are quite comfortable with that. But the sham of trying to pretend that customary rights orders will be applicable to Pakeha New Zealanders is totally dishonest. It leads to having to insert this extra category under “Matters of national importance” which could lead to some complications in the implementation of the Resource Management Act. We are trying to avoid that; we are trying to get it simplified. I make the point that the Government and New Zealand First would do best just to admit tonight in all honesty that this provision is only for Maori and remove it from the legislation so that we do not have any complications with the Resource Management Act. Then we could all get on with recognising genuine rights. I believe that most good New Zealanders would be happy to do so.  
I will make some comments about the new clause 100 “Vesting of reclaimed land”. When the original version of the clause first appeared in the bill representatives from ports all around the country queued up before the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee because they were obviously very concerned about what was being taken away from them. A strange policy was emerging—a policy that had nothing at all to do with the Ngati Apa case—whereby henceforth the Government would not allow anybody who had reclaimed land raised it from the foreshore and seabed and made it into dry land that could be walked on driven on and built on to have private title to it any more. Yet it has been fine in all previous years for that title to be issued.  
In fact it is just and right for it to be issued. If someone applies for a resource consent and pays all the costs of reclaiming the land building the retaining walls filling it all in and everything else why ought that person not then be able to claim private title to it? If the resource consent has been given it would seem entirely logical that a fee simple title to that land should be allowed. But no in the initial bill along came the land-grabbing Department of Conservation which thought that this legislation was a way in which it could hang on to some more land and only allow for 50-year leases in the future. That was totally unacceptable to the port companies. They all appeared before the select committee. The Timaru port people who have their own Act—a very good Act which they are very lucky to have—complained because they were going to see this removed. 
It is good to see that many of those issues are being addressed in the amendments the Minister is now proposing except that there will be only a small window of opportunity for someone to sneak through and still get perhaps a title or at least a protectoral lease.