Jones Shane: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Jones Shane: Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:670;Page:17242] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. I will focus on Part 2 of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill as members would expect and I assure you Mr Chairperson that I will do so in a manner that does not offend either your rulings or those of the person who was in the seat you currently occupy until very recently. 
I want to take us initially to clause 26 in Part 2. There is an interesting irony here. We are being invited to contemplate—and I find it difficult to actually follow how in an administrative sense it is to take place—that by dint of the passage of this legislation we will have a situation where Crown and sub-national bodies of Government will have their assets with certain exceptions regarded as part of the great public space etc but there will be an opportunity for local government to seek redress. I think this is one of the reasons why a number of hapu and tangata whenua have been stirred up. The Attorney-General may say they are ill-informed although I would say they see a double standard here. A number of them will point out to us the original way in which local government and other public bodies acquired either the land for the roads or other interests in land adjoining the seabed and foreshore—the takutai moana I should say—and say that those original grievances have not been satisfactorily dealt with. They are going to complain—as they already have done to us—that there is a very circuitous process that they are expected to go through but there seems to be a very straightforward process for the local body organisations to go through. It is probably a case where a well-intentioned intervention has turned into an issue as to whether there is a double standard here.  
I note that the Minister of Conservation or his or her delegate—I think that is the term being used—will presumably speak with the authority of the Crown. But clause 26(4) states—and if I am not mistaken this provision has carried over from Labour’s legislation; the Attorney-General might care to confirm that—that “No court has jurisdiction to hear any claim in respect of any loss suffered by a local authority as a result of the operation of section 18.” If that part was carried over from Labour’s bill then it could be one of the few redeeming features of the current bill but that is another matter. As the Minister goes forward issues of this nature will have to be carefully explained to Maori applicants because if there is a case where there has been a great deal of pain and confusion it is in the area of local government.  
I just want to go back and direct our attention to clause 11. My colleague David Parker has pointed out that yes the nomenclature is different but when we unpick the interests that are at stake in the new takiwa marea—that is my brief attempt at translating “public space”—we see that the Crown has exclusive authority and is No. 1 in the allocation of entitlement to occupy space. The Crown will have exclusive authority to set conditions to manage the effects of interaction activity use etc. in the space. The Crown will have enormous if not exclusive authority in enjoying the ability to exclude. I accept that the Minister may say that once a title or a customary interest has been recognised there will be a certain level of ability within the hapu or tangata whenua group to exercise enough authority to ensure that they can exclude others from having an injurious effect on the interests that have been restored to them. In my view it makes a nonsense to suggest that what is being replaced here in terms of Crown title with this broad vacant kind of conception of the space championed by Mr Dunne—appropriately so—is somehow both novel and something significantly different from the Crown. I accept that it does overcome one issue which is that in the politics of polarisation the Crown is often seen as being the wrong side of the equation. I invite the Minister to take a call during the course of the evening or tomorrow or more than likely early next week and correct either me or David Parker on whether we are being a little too uncharitable or are misunderstanding the actual impact and effect of the law in relation to the way we are describing it.  
I go on to point out that clause 30 states: “The Minister of Conservation is the manager of the common marine and coastal area and exercises and performs in respect of the common marine and coastal area all those management and administrative powers duties and functions provided for by this Act or any other enactment…”. That only goes to show that nothing in this bill significantly changes in terms of the Crown having that exclusive level of authority. It is politics but at one level it is a symbolic fiction that has been promoted by our colleagues in the Maori Party. They are entitled to do that. It really depends on how well that message is picked up by our people because the Maori Party has assumed that our people do not have the sophistication to see that they are being hoodwinked. Therein lies one of the sad things about this bill. The Maori Party knows deep down that Hone Harawira’s concerns are largely accurate but it has taken a punt that iwi and hapu are tired of the whole affair or it has occurred that they will not get access to advice or that they will not put in the effort to uncover the fact that this bill is really an exercise in chicanery. This does not deliver the promise. This does not deliver the things that the Maori Party put in its manifesto but unfortunately for Labour we are incapable of stopping this legislation other than the fact we will remind Maori people how it has not been possible for them to enjoy the success they thought they were going to get through the Maori Party. 
I direct the Minister’s attention to clause 39 “Determination of application by Minister”. It is kind of extraordinary—and I should imagine there are some strong commercial applications here—but we are putting Maori applicants through an inordinately circuitous process in order to prove their interests. This clause and a clause slightly earlier deal with the ability of developers to acquire a level of interest in the land that is not being extended to hapu and iwi not being extended to tangata whenua. Indeed I direct our attention to clause 39(1)(a) which states: “whether the applicant is to be granted an interest in the reclaimed land and if so whether that interest should be a freehold interest…”. That is not what Labour agreed to and I am quite sure the Minister will agree. The first time round that is not what Labour agreed to. We preferred a leasehold interest. It could be said that a very long-term lease is akin to a freehold interest anyhow but it is rather bizarre that the legislation which is being promoted by Tariana Turia and her team as having actually expanded the prospects of Maori securing greater customary interests will actually provide developers and the private sector with something akin to inalienable title. But the Maori Party is unwilling through this legislation to extend it to its own supporters or to iwi Maori. 
It is just a small example of how No. 1 the Maori Party has been inattentive. They have surrendered a great deal of control and stewardship—dare I say the sovereignty of the pen—to the Attorney-General. In many respects that is necessary because he is the most senior legal official in terms of Cabinet’s make-up but they should not for a moment think that the irony will not escape Maori voters—dare I say Maori applicants—that somehow or other they have to go uphill down dale across the takutai moana through a very circuitous range of steps and at the same time this legislation crazily enough makes it arguably easier for large-scale commercial interests to secure a greater level of ownership of reclaimed land. The Minister may say that as the land is being reclaimed someone else had already lost out prior to that because it was presumably if not vacant dormant space.