Turei Metiria: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Foreshore and Seabed Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16975] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has a number of amendments to Part 1. The first one I want to talk about proposes to omit new clauses 2A and 3 from Supplementary Order Paper 302. This legislation is racist. I know that is uncomfortable for people to hear; none the less it is the truth. If there is one thing about the whole process of the foreshore and seabed it is that the truth the facts have been continually denied and fallacies put in their place. There has been purposeful deception of the community and the public which is not the way any good Government in any circumstances can be expected to behave and proceed in a democracy.  
One of the fallacies that have been relied on by this Government and New Zealand First is set out very clearly in new clause 2A. There is a fundamental flaw in its reasoning. I will read out this clause for those who may not have had the opportunity to read it: “The object of this Act is to preserve the public foreshore and seabed in perpetuity as the common heritage of all New Zealanders in a way that enables the protection by the Crown of the public foreshore and seabed on behalf of all the people of New Zealand including”—and here is the problem—“the protection of the association of whanau hapu and iwi with areas of the public foreshore and seabed.”  
The Ngati Apa Court of Appeal decision last year clearly dispelled the myth that the Crown has absolute ownership of the foreshore and seabed. There is no such thing as public foreshore and seabed—it is a myth a deception that is being used to drum up support from the public who do not have the full information about the nature of the law and of the common law rights that Maori have had before and since 1840 and that are actually still extant. They may still exist and they are due to be explored in law and rightfully so. The fallacy that the foreshore and seabed are owned by the Crown has been continually challenged by Maori for well over 100 years in all the various forums we have had available to us. We have been pursuing those interests continually—hence the Ngati Apa decision. 
Jim Evans a highly esteemed legal professor from Auckland University law school has also clearly articulated that the Crown must first acknowledge that it and the public have been operating on a false premise. Just because one thinks the foreshore and seabed are in Crown ownership does not make them in Crown ownership. Just because one wants them to be so does not make them so. One has to deal first with the actual realities and truths of the situation which is that the customary rights to the foreshore and seabed have not necessarily been extinguished. Maori customary rights may still be extant and they are entitled to be explored in law. The underlying title is still up for discussion and negotiation in the courts. Those rights may still continue to exist and all citizens of our country are entitled to explore fully their rights in the courts. Maori are citizens of this country too and they are entitled to explore the full extent of their rights in law in the courts. Yet this Government operating on the false premise on the fallacy that the customary rights to the foreshore and seabed have been extinguished are denying Maori the opportunity to go to the courts as other citizens are entitled to do to explore their full rights.  
New clause 2A makes this false presumption that there is such a thing as a public foreshore and seabed but as I have said Maori still have unexplored rights in that foreshore and seabed. Therefore it is not public. The underlying title is still in dispute. It is a deception; it is a redefinition of those areas in order to extinguish Maori rights and to confiscate those areas where the courts may find customary rights are still in existence.  
Our amendment to omit clauses 2A and 3 on the Supplementary Order Paper is an attempt to eliminate the fallacies that the Government and New Zealand First are operating on and restore some status of truth to the situation so that at least members of the public clearly understand what is going on for them. One of the other amendments we have proposed is to omit clause 3 which vests the full ownership of the foreshore and seabed to the Crown making what has been untrue to this point legally true but morally wrong—ethically wrong. It is an unnecessary clause. There is no need for Crown ownership to be vested in this full way in the bill.  
Other options have been proposed by submitters and various people since this issue has come up for discussion. Those options include allowing Maori to proceed to the courts to have their rights explored like other citizens are entitled to do. That exploration would not be confined only to the legal principles from overseas jurisdictions like Canada and Australia. In fact those explorations would occur within the treaty jurisprudence that has already been developed in this country over the last 30 or 40 years. We have a different situation here. Government members continue to argue that this bill will give Maori more than what they would get in the courts.