Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — First Reading 
Peters Winston: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12722] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
Nga reo nga mana nga waka ngapukorero o nga hau e wha rau rangatira ma tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
To the languages authorities canoes spokespersons of the four winds and the hundreds of chiefs greetings greetings and greetings to you all 
.] 
Rudyard Kipling once referred to people keeping their heads when all about them are losing theirs. One may well then ask the question that if Maori have had a complete victory why were 20000 pounding the streets outside Parliament yesterday? The sort of speech we have just heard defies all logic all truth and all reality. The truth is that from day one my party said that that which we understood to be the law would be the law when this debate was over—that the foreshore and seabed would be as our people died for in two wars in the hands of every New Zealander regardless of race religion or background. The previous speaker Dr Brash either does not understand this bill or is deliberately setting out to create mischief and to set one group of New Zealanders against the others—in other words to divide and rule or to use Professor Palmer’s famous words he is spreading rumour with malice. 
I began my legal career acting for Maori on issues to do with land. My tribe Ngati Wai knows full well that they will lose nothing whatsoever from this bill. If they were to lose something we would be defending them. This legislation guarantees that all the people of New Zealand will own the foreshore and seabed though Crown ownership in perpetuity forever for our children and millions of our children yet unborn. That is what this bill says. The term “perpetuity” is important. It means forever and ever. 
I can see why that does not appeal to Dr Brash and his cohorts because selling State assets is what his party is about. Which party decided to take things to do with our right for centuries and sell them to the highest bidder and to have quota owned in perpetuity? 
Hon Member 
: National! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well no those members there did and those agreed and before people march on the streets let us have some facts. Why does he fear this statement “in perpetuity”? Well members should look at his record on selling State assets. Even now his speeches favour that. It is clear that he wants the foreshore and seabed in Crown ownership but only for a brief time until he has a chance to sell them. This guardian and protector of our assets and our treasures would have 10 million people from abroad in this country tomorrow and pray tell me where our foreshore and seabed assets will be when that happens. 
Hon Member 
: What a hopeless speech. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I know he made a hopeless speech but I would not have said so so close to the next election. 
Customary rights relate to a specified activity associated with the seabed and foreshore such as the launching of a waka the anchoring of a boat the collecting of sand or some other historical activity and they will go on in perpetuity regardless of race. Again the test is that this activity must be demonstrably able to be proven before either the Maori Land Court for ease of costs or the High Court in the case of non-Maori—and non-Maori are included. Where an ancestral connection order or a customary rights order is recognised it will be recorded on the register. People will know whose interests are there. 
But here is the important point. Who wrote this term back in 1991? The people behind me wrote this term into the law in the Resource Management Act for which they found such great favour in comparison with the clauses I am about to recite. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Where were you Winston? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Where was I back then? Actually I was about to be expelled from the National Party because I was against the sale of State assets and on that record I will bow to no one behind me on standing up for what is right for New Zealanders. This is what National said about matters of national importance back in 1991. National members said they would recognise the relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands water sites wahi tapu and other taonga. What does this bill say? This bill says only that the protection recognises customary activities. 
If we heard that speech we know that it is about cant it is about deceit and it is about misrepresentation. That is the fact. The vehicle on which National members have predicated their next election victory has just been swept from beneath them. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Oh come on! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Those members can travel the country make all the speeches to the Business Roundtable and the rotary clubs and spread ignorance but here we are talking about facts. It is fascinating is it not that under this bill Maori and non-Maori will be able to apply to have their ancestral connection to a particular tract of seabed and foreshore recognised. In fact everyone will be the same. Dr Brash mischievously says that the Maori Land Court is likely to grant ancestral connection over the entire coastline but he must surely have lawyers in his party who know that that is demonstrably and palpably untrue. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Margaret Wilson said that. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: She may have said it in April but the deal we have done with the Labour Party Government demands seven things and all seven things are in this bill. So let us stop the humbug. 
For applicants to the Maori Land Court to be granted an ancestral connection order they must demonstrate through fact that they have had largely a continuous and effectively unbroken link to that particular piece of seabed and foreshore back to 1840. That is why NgatiPorou is not protesting and that is why a number of European institutions will not protest either—because they can prove what I am saying to be a fact. National claims to be an Auckland party. What is the Auckland regatta if not something that was happening in 1840? The right of that whole community to hold one of the biggest days it ever holds will be preserved as well. 
I want to make this very very clear because it is very important. National Party members of course have their DNA their blood and their fingerprints all over this issue. They believe in the Yasser Arafat policy—create the mess the havoc the dissidence the indifference and the chaos then claim somehow that all the solutions will not work. They have their DNA all over it. Every bit of this legislation about which they protest and that is now being fixed up is what they put in place. I know that full well. I can recall being expelled from their caucus for saying that. Here they stand like Pontius Pilate wiping their hands of it—claiming to have no knowledge. If there are New Zealanders out there who do not understand that they should seriously get to understand it in the next few months as we close to the 2005 election. 
But who said this on Radio Pacific recently about customary fishing rights for Maori which National put in the legislation? Don Brash said: “I am ahh comfortable with that.” That is what he said. Michael Laws asked him: “What about these pieces of legislation that precisely go far further than this bill?” and he said first of all that he was comfortable with that and then he said: “But I must apprise myself of the detail.” Someone who is 64 has been a governor of the Reserve Bank and pretends to lead a party that might one day be the Government owes the country more than that. It might be difficult to find the parliamentary toilets but this is no place to learn on the job. Either one knows one’s party’s record or one does not. One thing I want to make very clear to every pretending National Party supporter is that he or she will know National’s record before the 2005 election and that this bill is safe. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I point out that the only comments that may be made are from members of this House.