Copeland Gordon: Marine Reserves (Consultation with Stakeholders) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Marine Reserves (Consultation with Stakeholders) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I begin by congratulating the member Eric Roy on having the Marine Reserves (Consultation with Stakeholders) Amendment Bill drawn from the ballot. United Future is very delighted that this bill has been drawn from the ballot because it is extremely topical and—as Tariana Turia has also mentioned—very controversial from a number of points of view. United Future members will be supporting this bill going through its first reading and on to the select committee. 
I should say at the outset that the principal reason for that is that the bill fits in exactly with United Future’s political philosophy. Our political philosophy can be summed up in the principle of subsidiarity. Some people in this House may be very familiar with that term; other people may never have heard of it. It simply means that political power should be devolved to the most appropriate level at which a decision should be taken. In other words it means that decisions proper to a family should be taken by the family. I guess we can go even lower and say that decisions proper to an individual should be taken by that individual. So we have the family the local community the local town the city and—only then and finally—the nation. 
It is appropriate that in the situation considered in the bill we give much more regard to consultation with the people affected. When a decision is made about a marine reserve a group of people in that location will be primarily affected; therefore they must have a say. It is interesting too from the point of view of the remarks made by the Hon Tariana Turia that the first time I ever came across the word “subsidiarity” was when a group of Maori came to talk to me and used the word. I had to ask them what it meant and they pointed me back to a social encyclical given by a Catholic Pope about a hundred years ago. That principle has therefore been a cornerstone of Catholic social teaching to this day—for more than a hundred years. 
When that group of Catholic Maori discovered the principle in a papal document they were tremendously encouraged. They said to me that precisely the whole problem about the implementation of the Treaty was that the principle of subsidiarity had not been followed. It must mean of course as the previous speaker has mentioned that we bring iwi and hapu and those with mana whenua into the process—not just as some window dressing exercise and not just so that a Minister can stand up here and say that people have been spoken to or even consulted but so that those people have been involved in the decision-making process. 
The process is the one that Eric Roy is bringing before the House in this bill. He is saying that those decisions must be taken effectively with the support of local communities and that that process takes consultation to its logical conclusion. When members think about that position they will realise that it is obviously the right position to be in. It is much better for decisions about marine reserves to be taken with the support of local and affected people—all of those we have mentioned: fishers tourists recreational users sailors tourism operators and so on. All those people need to be involved in the process and ideally they should feel that the outcome is one they have had a part in. 
This philosophy is much to be preferred to the nanny State philosophy that I must confess I see exhibited constantly in this House by the Green Party. That philosophy pretends that some people in our society who claim to have a much greater reverence for the environment than others for example somehow have a superior wisdom and that their view should prevail against other people’s views. I do not believe that that is where wisdom lies; I believe that it lies at local community level. I believe that it lies with the people affected by the decisions and that they therefore should be consulted and be part of the process. So United Future has great pleasure in signalling its support for this bill on its first reading and we will vote accordingly.