Foreshore and Seabed Bill

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I did not raise this point of order and contest your decision prior to taking the vote we have just completed, but I point out to you that I have been calling for an hour and a half. I was the ACT party’s member on the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee, but it appears to me that you studiously avoided acknowledging my call. As the person who represented ACT right through the select committee process, I would like some assurance that I will get a call on Part 6, having been denied one on Part 5.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that. He has that assurance. I shall do my best to be fair.

This clause is a piece of work on which Dail Jones really should be patting himself on the back. This part is an amazing piece of work. These clauses are absolutely amazing, and Dail Jones will forever be walking around in white shoes with a gold dangly around his neck, known as the man who came to town with the chequebook to buy off all the applicants to the territorial title claims and territorial rights claims to the seabed and foreshore.

When one reads through the bill, one sees that it starts off very gently and makes comments about the chief executive of the Ministry of Justice having to register all these titles, rights, agreements, and various other things. But then when we look at the actual meat and potatoes of the part—that is right around clause 112, which I know a lot about, and clause 115, which I think is now called clause 115A—we see a picture, especially if we go to the latter clause 115, whereby there is nothing in this bill to stop any appropriately appointed Government Minister doing a deal with Māori treaty claimants to give them title, full beneficial ownership, to the seabed and foreshore. That Government Minister would most likely be the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations.

As we spoke of before in another clause—because it is in the bill twice just to make sure that Tainui know it is in there—this is the “Tainui, get us off the hook.” clause, the “Welcome back to the camp, Nanaia Mahuta!” part of the bill. We know that Raglan Harbour is very shortly to be signed over—the Minister of Māori Affairs has just confirmed it—lock, stock, and barrel to Tainui, supposedly as a treaty settlement. This bill that is to protect the seabed and foreshore and to put it into public ownership, is going to allow just that.

Then when we look back in the bill to the changes that were made around clause 112, we see that the Minister of Māori Affairs and the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations can go to—

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: I will go to the High Court!

I will tell them that; the poor fellow has not read the bill!—a Māori claimant group, a group claiming a territorial right or a customary right on a stretch of coastline, and can say: “All right, we’ll negotiate with you. We will get all this done, we will ratify it, but you’ll guarantee to hand the title back to the Crown—and we’ll give you a cheque.” That is what clause 112 states.

I am fascinated that Mr Jones is sitting there, wondering what he has done. His colleagues are sitting next to him, saying: “No, he can’t have.” Well, he has. Clause 112(1) is very simple: “The Attorney-General and the Minister of Māori Affairs may enter into an agreement with a group to recognise that, but for the vesting of the full legal and beneficial ownership of the public foreshore and seabed in the Crown …” and so on. Once they have agreed, the applicant group simply takes the affidavit, the bit of paper signed by those two Ministers, that says clauses 28 and 31 have been satisfied.

Well, when we go back and have a look at those clauses, we see that they will be given just a bit of a cursory glance. The Ministers do not have to prove a darn thing, as they would in a court. Oh, the thumbs are up over there; they know it; they do not have to prove a thing. They will get the affidavits and do the little sweetheart deal, and the High Court will have no choice other than to give the rights. Then they will go back into the backroom and work out just how the cheque—it will already have been negotiated how big it is—will be paid over.

I can see the Minister in charge of the bill shaking his head. Well, I tell Mr Cullen that I am sorry, but throughout the day—

The member has become visibly deflated during the day. As the debate has gone on, the arguments have got thinner and thinner and more tenuous from the Opposition. Let us just try and deal with what on earth the member has been trying to make out of the bill, this time.

Clause 115A assures Māori that this bill does not affect existing or future treaty settlements, so what does that mean? What it means is this: if some Government—as the National Government did in 1996—entered into a treaty agreement to hand over the foreshore and seabed, it would have to pass an Act. What does a Government have to do now? It has to pass an Act. In other words, nothing changes at all. Again, I say that nothing changes at all.

But that member will lie awake at night worrying that that beach where he is the most famous surfer—a man who comes in day after day amazing everybody with his skill—might pass into private Māori ownership.

Sitting suspended from 12 midnight to 9 a.m. (Thursday)