Brownlee Gerry: Maori Purposes Bill — First Reading 
Brownlee Gerry: Maori Purposes Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:3953] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Those were fine words from the Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia in support of the bill—his first bill before Parliament in some 6 years! He is not a bad Minister when he sticks tightly to the script but when he sticks tightly to the script he does not tell the full story. 
Parliament provides a number of ways in which various legislative measures can be handled. For example a Statutes Amendment Bill can gather together minor corrections to legislation and be put through Parliament on the agreement of the parties. Omnibus bills are another means by which disparate parts of legislation that are on pretty much the same topic but are larger than just minor amendments—although not big enough for a bill—can be put through with the agreement of the House. Because this country is bedevilled by so much legislation that relates to all things Maori there is also provision for a Maori Purposes Bill. One would think that a Minister of Maori Affairs would want to use such a bill somewhat sparingly—perhaps to make those statutory amendments that might be expected or perhaps to change a section or two here or there as one might use an omnibus bill. But surely one would not use it to carry Labour’s showcase legislation—the 2008 close-off of claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. 
We know that when this bill comes back to the House it will be split into several parts for voting purposes. One part will relate to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 another to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and another to the Maori Fisheries Act 2004 that was passed by the House just recently. I signal now that National will go through the select committee process as a party. We will vote in favour of the changes to the Treaty of Waitangi Act but we will be very reluctant to support those two other aspects of the bill. 
I want to talk about those aspects. The first relates to changes to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. Those are not inconsequential changes. They validate decisions made by the Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court—someone who had no right to make decisions about matters Maori about matters that came before a court and about matters that people would have thought were justly resolved by a duly appointed and warranted judge. Although the Minister might say it is only a few decisions he misleads us because this has been going on for years and years and years. We asked the department to tell us what those cases were and all it has been able to come up with is that 83 decisions were made by Judge Norman F Smith over a period of 10 days in 2000 when he did not have a warrant. So here we are 6 years later and Parekura Horomia has come into the House and said that Parliament had better make legal what that man did 6 years ago. 
What were those decisions? They were to do with the transfer of land ownership from Maori-held land to fee simple title the appointment of successor trustees the establishment of trusts—and in one case the judge had four goes over 10 days to establish one trust so for the Government to say there was no conflict is utter rubbish—and the transfer of Maori land to general land. There were also numerous occasions when moneys owed to beneficiaries were paid out because of a direction from the judge. The people who received those benefits are not wealthy. We are being told that over and over; they even have a special tax rate because they do not have the wealth that is apparently available to other New Zealanders. So why would it be any surprise that there has been no appeal in any of those cases? Firstly those people have not known about those decisions. All of those people who were affected in the 83 cases provided to us—and in reality we suspect there are more than 300 cases—do not know that the decision they have lived by for well over 10 years is not legally binding. That apparently is justice—that is how we treat Maori in this country. Would anybody else in the population accept that outcome if it had come from any court other than the Maori Land Court? I say to Parekura Horomia that that is a disgraceful way to treat people and we will not be supporting that measure. We want to know a lot more about some of the cases—some 83 cases—that are so blandly described but are so clearly controversial in that list of 10 days’ work by Judge Norman F Smith. Members should think about that. The judge made 83 decisions in 10 days. That guy is a “super-judge” but the problem is of course that he was not a judge at all. 
Now we come to Part 3 which really tickles me. It is do with the Maori Fisheries Act 2004 which was passed just a short time ago—about 18 months ago. When this legislation was passed a number of members on this side of the House said that it was a mess that there were problems all over it— 
Phil Heatley 
: We’ll be back. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: —and that we would be back in the House trying to sort it out before too long. Sure enough here we are. I want to know why the high and mighty chairman of Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Mr Shane Jones—double-dipping MP—did not understand that the section 28N rights would eventually affect the way in which Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee received and allocated its quota. It is a very very simple thing I would have thought. But no all the bright and clever well and learned people who told us that everything was well and that this was what Maori wanted have been proved wrong. 
That is not all. Another little aspect of this really causes me quite a bit of concern. It is Part 4 which amends the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. Within 18 months the Government has seen two of its Acts come back to the House in need of a tidy-up. It is no wonder that the Government does not want to do that in any other way than by this clandestine Maori Purposes Bill method. Clause 27: “amends section 20 by restricting the definition of pre-commencement space to include areas subject to permits for exclusive occupation of space for aquaculture activities including spat gathering but to exclude areas subject to permits for free gathering of spat.” 
Hon Member 
: What does that mean? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Well what happened was that the clever people in the fisheries area—Mr Jones and his mates—declared that there were no free spat-gathering areas and that therefore it was easy to hand 20 percent of spat to Maori because spat is a quota; it is a species. Then those clever people discovered that two massive areas including the whole of Cook Strait the whole of the Tory Channel and the whole of Queen Charlotte Sound were available for free spat-gathering. So they asked themselves how they would give Maori 20 percent of that bit of action. 
Shane Jones 
: Gerry’s thinking with his puku. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Mr Jones over there confirmed it—the clever people came here and said that cash would do it. They have this method that means essentially that when marine farmers take their spat lines from any of the free spat-gathering areas—and we must remember that spat are basically baby mussels which attach themselves to ropes suspended from buoys etc.—they can ask for a cheque for 20 percent of the value of the spat. That is what this provision will lead to. There is no question about it because the Minister cannot deny that there is no regulation around any of this yet. 
I make it clear tonight that the National Party is voting for this bill on the basis that it is effectively an omnibus bill and that it will be back before the House to be split into four bills. We expect we will not vote for the first one; the second one we will vote for and the third and fourth ones we will not vote for. I can tell the people who are behind this bill now that we will expect much better information from them as officials than was given to me yesterday when I attended a briefing in the office of the Minister Parekura Horomia. For some reason it is like going into a great cavernous room—the offices that those people occupy are huge—where all intelligible thought disappears. I tell the Minister that we do not want any more of that; we want good officials at the select committee. That the rights of so many people were apparently determined by a person who had no judicial warrant to do so will require a lot more explanation.