Ardern Shane: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:17018] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I have been seeking the call for some time and it is an honour to be given one. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Well don’t waste it. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: I certainly will not be wasting it because I have a question for the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Cullen and for the chair of the select committee. Why did they not allow this measure to go through the Maori Land Court process? The only answer that I can conclude is that they did not trust the lefty activists that they themselves put into that court. Why else was it not allowed to go through the full court process? The chair himself said that this is a very simple amendment and it is not as big as people make it out to be. If that is the case then why not trust the court process to sort it out? Why are we here today under urgency with this kind of process? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Is that the National Party position? It’s position No. 5 for today. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: The Minister can criticise the National Party but he has not answered that basic question. Why is it that Maori in New Zealand who have blindly followed this Labour Government and other Labour Governments for the last 100 years were not given a simple answer to that question? The Minister in the chair will not answer but we know what the answer is. It is because it was politically too difficult for them to handle. I remind those members of the old saying: “You can please some of the people some of the time but you can’t please all the people all the time.”  
The Labour Government has tried to have a bob both ways and it has failed. If it were not for Winston Peters and the New Zealand First Party this legislation would have fallen over because the Maori members of the Labour caucus have been jumping out of the waka so quick it has tipped over as well. If it had not been for the support of New Zealand First this bill would not have proceeded.  
I say to the Minister and to those other members if it is a very simple amendment why is it that we had hui up and down New Zealand for months and months then we had a select committee process that went on for months and months then a 67-page Supplementary Order Paper that was introduced yesterday afternoon at 5.30 p.m.—[ 
Interruption 
] The Minister is disputing what I am saying about the Supplementary Order Paper but I have a copy here and there are exactly 67 pages. I was absolutely right. The Minister does note even know how many pages there are in his own Supplementary Order Paper. Why was that Supplementary Order Paper introduced at 5.30 yesterday afternoon without Parliament being given the proper chance to go through it in the way that it should?  
I say to the members of the Maori caucus that they have been duped and their electorates will point that out to them. It will not happen for a while—probably not for a couple of years. I forecast that the real problems hidden in this divisive legislation will not surface for a couple of years but when they do they will remember who it was who allowed this to go through Parliament. I say to them that they still have a chance. One of their colleagues has jumped out of the waka and there is still time for the rest of them. They can jump out of this waka tip it over sink it and finish it. This legislation is not in the best interests of their own people and I appeal to their better judgment to do what is right and hang out for their own people. They sent them here they elected them and those Maori members should not let themselves be swept along with the rest of the socialists who are trying to sweep them under the carpet with this legislation.  
There are 18000 kilometres of coastline in New Zealand. As the chair of the select committee said everybody in New Zealand had an expectation in mind as to who had access. It came about as a result of Queen Victoria saying to Governor Hobson in 1843 that the people of New Zealand whether they be Maori or European should have access to the seabed foreshore and coastlines and that has been the case ever since. There is no dispute about where that started; it is absolutely well and truly recorded in the history of New Zealand. Why is it then that at this point in time because of an oversight in the Resource Management Act—it was not a deliberate misleading of Parliament or of the people of New Zealand—we are here today in urgency debating what the chair of the select committee himself says is a very minor technical amendment when really it is just an amendment to the Resource Management Act to prohibit Maori from having what they always thought they had? Why are we doing that? Perhaps the Minister or any other Government member could take a call and clear this up. Why was there not just a simple amendment to the Resource Management Act to stop that from happening?