Heatley Phil: Aquaculture Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Heatley Phil: Aquaculture Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17754. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 Part 6 will of course be broken off and form a separate bill as will the other parts that we have been and will be debating in the Committee stage. It concerns the amendments to the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and is all about the Maori Land Court dealing with disputes—in particular those relating to aquaculture in various regions throughout New Zealand. Members will recall that there was negotiation there was a deed of settlement and there was an Act passed for the Maori fisheries settlement in 1992. There was a period of 10 or 12 years when Te Oku Kai Moana the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission had to work with Maori up and down the length and breadth of the country in order to resolve who had a genuine claim to a fisheries allocation in particular regions. That was a very long-winded process. It involved lots of necessary hearings in front of the Maori Land Court and resulted in a bill being brought into Parliament late last year that we looked at during the first part of this year. Interestingly enough even the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee when it got that legislation after 12 years’ work made some changes in relation to some iwi making claims to a fisheries allocation. 
These amendments in the Aquaculture Reform Bill are to go through the same process as that so that iwi can put their case as to their right to the allocation of space. They will be doing that primarily before the Maori Land Court. That is why we are looking at Part 6 “Amendments to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993”. The difficulty will be that there were 12 years of disputes over the Maori fisheries settlement—and that was when back in the early 1990s there had been negotiation a deed of settlement and an Act passed that dealt with that allocation. So members can imagine the disputes we will have before the Maori Land Court arising from this legislation given that there has been no negotiation no deed of settlement and no Act specifically dealing with this particular treaty settlement. The Maori Land Court which is referred to in these short clauses will be very very busy indeed. 
It was interesting when doing the Maori fisheries settlement to talk about coastline disputes. That was just one type of dispute that was possible—a dispute about where the coastline began and ended for a particular whanau iwi and hapu and if there was disagreement on that who had to resolve it and how it was done. The coastline agreement had to do with inshore fisheries only rather than offshore fisheries as well so it was major in one sense but not wholly significant. The coastline agreements with regard to aquaculture will be absolutely essential when it comes to deciding which hapu and iwi have claim to a particular aquaculture management area. I can say now to the country that there will be huge arguments over that particular issue. Iwi will be fighting iwi for years and years to come. We will hold our heads in our hands and weep. Had the Minister negotiated with Maori signed a deed of settlement with them and got buy-in perhaps all that could have been avoided. So if the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope thinks that this part is some kind of silver bullet that will solve aquaculture disputes in the marine management area over the next decade he is dreaming. That is why we have to have these amendments to the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act.