Hartley Ann: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Hartley Ann: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:17171] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: 
We attend to that. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I do hope you will listen very very carefully to some of the comments made in interjections. I am particularly sensitive about this because of my ejection from the Chamber yesterday over exactly this sort of issue. I do not want to have to go through the same performance to highlight some of the extreme bad manners being exhibited by other members in this Chamber—particularly members who know that they are skating on thin ice have weak arguments and have very little else to offer the Committee.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I thank the member for his point of order. There have been lots of interjections on both sides of the Chamber. Members have indicated that they want a robust debate and I will rule accordingly.  
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I am taking a very simple position. We notice that in this bill there is now a huge court process around the establishment of customary rights. Something National is very proud of is that under the National Government customary rights were those that were 
accepted to be so because they were demonstrated to be so. We included those in treaty settlements without any difficulty and I cannot see why Maori now have to go through this extraordinary proof process around customary rights.  
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Don’t have to. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I can see Dover Samuels scratching his head and saying that it is all right and that they do not have to. Maori cannot have those rights recognised if they do not do that. I think the problem with this bill is firstly that it is unfair to most New Zealanders and is therefore racist. It is racist on two counts. It apparently makes Maori the only people in this country who can have customary rights but it then states that they can have those rights only if they are ratified by a court. For the rest of us there is 
this sham process available that I dare say will never be used successfully—and the Government knows that.  
Going around telling New Zealanders that it has protected the foreshore and seabed in perpetuity is also a gross misrepresentation of the actual truth in this bill. Under clauses 112 and 115 the Government reserves for itself the absolute right to dispose of the seabed and foreshore as it sees fit. 
The worst thing is that the Government has said that it trusts the public’s interest in the foreshore and seabed being in the hands of the Minister of Conservation—and everyone knows that that means it will be in the hands of the Director-General of Conservation. He is an unelected public official who anonymously goes about administering at this stage over a third of this country’s land mass. When we add in this new requirement to look after the seabed and foreshore it is a very substantial increase on that amount. That is just plain unacceptable.  
We are seeing from the Minister of Maori Affairs this pathetic cry of how well the Government has done for Maori. We are in some of New Zealand’s best economic times and that is entirely due to the National Government of the late 1990s. We now have low Maori unemployment 
;  
well is that not just a core requirement of politicians?  
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Concede it! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I ask Mr Horomia to take another call. I bet he will not. There is not a chance. He will stay seated on his backside. [ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. That was an extraordinary outburst from the other side of the Chamber. Some of what the Minister of Maori Affairs was saying to me was personally very offensive. Much as the Prime Minister was deeply hurt by the Nuremburg comment the other day I was too of course. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has taken offence. I ask Mr Horomia to stand withdraw and apologise for that remark. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: I withdraw and apologise.