Committees — Business of Select Committees

I move, That this House establish a committee to consider and report to it on such fisheries and other sea-related legislation that may be referred to it; the committee to consist of 10 members to be nominated by parties to the Speaker as follows: New Zealand Labour 4, New Zealand National 2, New Zealand First 1, Green Party 1, ACT New Zealand 1, and United Future 1; and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 193 and 196 (1 )(b) and (c).

This is moved primarily for three reasons. The first is that both this bill that we have just been discussing, and a number of other bills, are bills in which all political parties have a keen interest and should be involved with in terms of the considerations of the select committee. The only two select committees that have all-party representation at present are the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Standing Orders Committee. I think that by no stretch of the imagination would anybody care to suggest that the Waitangi fisheries settlement legislation should be referred to the Standing Orders Committee, and probably not the Finance and Expenditure Committee, either.

Secondly, these are all matters in which there is deep Māori interest in particular. It is appropriate, therefore, to give parties the chance to nominate members to the select committee with a particular emphasis upon the Māori membership of the House.

The third matter is that the bills that are likely to be referred to the select committee have a degree of common ground between them—that is, the fisheries settlement legislation, the foreshore and seabed legislation, and probably the aquaculture legislation, and I would think that we also need to consider the marine reserves legislation as coming into that category.

And what particularly will be in common to those, apart from many of the issues, is that many of the submitters on those bills will have very much in common. There will be a very strong interest with all those bills in submissions from iwi and hapū groups, and other Māori organisations. The select committee may wish to be able to partake of the possibility—given that some of these bills will be running alongside each other in terms of actual time—of being able to travel the country and take submissions on a range of bills simultaneously from particular groups. This will facilitate that process. Otherwise what would happen is that the Waitangi fisheries legislation would probably go to the Māori Affairs Committee, the foreshore and seabed legislation—goodness knows where that would go, appropriately. The Marine Reserves Bill would go to the Local Government and Environment Committee, almost certainly; and the aquaculture legislation would go to the Primary Production Committee. Therefore they would have been split all over the place in terms of the select committees dealing with those matters.

The third element is that almost certainly in terms of the foreshore and seabed legislation we would have sought to set up a separate select committee. As I said, it does not fit easily into any other committee, and given the very strong interest of all parties, I am sure, in that issue, but again the particular interest of Māori in that issue, there are problems in running select committees if a separate committee is set up, while other mainline committees are continuing major work in the meantime. The whips will be particularly aware—certainly the Government whips are—of the difficulty of running the number of people involved in select committees in that case. By forming a separate select committee we are able to ensure that one or two other select committees will have their workloads significantly reduced. They will not need to meet so often over the coming months, while this special select committee is under way.

It is going to be a very important select committee because of the nature of the legislation before it. In some ways a good deal of this legislation will reflect issues about the nature of our nation and its identity, and the way forward in that respect. I wish it well. Because of the bulk of the work that is going to be involved, the greater amount of work, I think the suggestion, certainly in my own mind, is that there are going to be a lot of submissions, so that the committee will need to meet outside the normal one morning a week sitting times for a select committee, to enable that range of submissions to be heard, while progress is being made.

Particularly in terms of the bill we have just been considering, the message I have loud and clear is that the momentum now needs to be continued and carried through to conclusion. We have been waiting 11 years so far for a settlement of the division of the fisheries settlement. We cannot now as a House delay the process for year upon year, while the select committee wends its way through a large number of submissions, with only meetings in a relatively limited amount of time per week. We need to get on and make sure that now people can make progress based on the resources that are available.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National): I listened with interest to the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments about the reasons why we are debating this motion setting up a special select committee to consider possibly four bills that relate to matters that are contentious in the Parliament and contentious in the public’s mind. I listened carefully to see whether the Minister had a very good reason why we should set up a special select committee, rather than refer the legislation to one of the permanent select committees.

I was interested to hear the Minister say we should set up a special select committee, firstly, to make sure that every party is represented, and I accept that because that is logical and very useful; and, secondly, he said we should make sure there is good representation of Māori on the special select committee. At that point I started to wonder what was the real reason behind our setting up a special committee. One has to ask this question: we have a Māori Affairs Committee, we have a Primary Production Committee—

Practically no Māori on that.

💬 JOHN CARTER: Correct. But the point is that with either of those committees, if there is a will by one or other of the parties that may not be represented on them directly, there is the means by which that can happen. If a particular party feels that the people who are representing them on it are not the appropriate people, then changes can be made. So it led me to this conclusion: the Government is concerned about the politics around these issues—the Maori Fisheries Bill, the foreshore and seabed bill, and the aquaculture and marine reserves legislation—and it is playing politics by setting up this special select committee.

It is doing so because it is concerned that if it did, for instance, refer the bill to the Māori Affairs Committee, then not only would that not look like the appropriate select committee, but it would then cause the Government some difficulties in managing its people on that select committee. I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that I understand—and he can confirm it or not—that Russell Fairbrother is to be the chairman of the special select committee.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Yes, a brand-new member.

💬 JOHN CARTER: He is a first-term member who will be the chairman of a select committee that will deal with some extremely important, sensitive legislation. Why would one get an anonymous backbencher to chair the select committee?

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: He’s known for his sensitivity.

💬 JOHN CARTER: That is right. Mr Prebble interjected that Mr Fairbrother is well known for his sensitivity. The fact is that we have to ask ourselves that question. The next question that then sprang to my mind is: who else is the Labour Party and the Deputy Prime Minister likely to put on the select committee from its side? If this motion gets passed, Labour will have four members. So I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether Tariana Turia will be one of those members. I have a great respect for that lady. [Interruption] Well, there are a few things she says that I do not agree with. There is a lot of stuff she says that I think makes good sense.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Name one.

💬 JOHN CARTER: I can name several, and am happy to do so, but not on this occasion, because I want to continue on with my political point. I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister trusts that member enough to put her on the select committee. It is well known that if issues start going down a line that the member will not like, she will speak out about it. So I will take a bet that the Government will not run the risk of putting someone like Tariana Turia on the select committee. The Government will try to control and manipulate the committee so that it gets the decision it wants, and it will not want to run the risk of putting anyone on the committee that is likely to upset the apple cart. I say that the chances of having Tariana Turia on the committee as a representative of the Labour Party are zilch. That is a great pity, a great shame. Other members in the Labour Party—

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. For the attention of Mrs Awatere-Huata, one does not stand at the back of the House when another member is on his or her feet speaking.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, the member will be seated.

💬 JOHN CARTER: There are other members from the Māori caucus of the Labour Party who should be represented on the select committee, but I ask whether the Government will do that, or will it put someone on it who comes from a pretty much landlocked electorate—David Parker, for example.

💬 Jim Peters: David Parker?

💬 JOHN CARTER: David Parker. The Government may want to put David Parker on the committee because it will be the last thing he does before he loses his seat at the next election, and it might want to give him the feeling of a little bit of power and influence. But one has to ask why the Government would put him on, above somebody like, for example, Dover Samuels. Why would it put somebody who does not know what a fish looks like—and I doubt whether he runs into many Māori down there either, for that matter—on to something that is as sensitive as this? One has to ask those sorts of questions as we debate who should be on the committee and who should not, and why we should have it at all.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.