Ngāti Tuwharetoa (Bay of Plenty) Claims Settlement Bill

This is the part that makes possible the transfer of various properties from the land bank to, in this case, Ngāti Tūwharetoa Bay of Plenty as part of the redress and the accumulated settlement arrangement. It is relatively straightforward, and I do not think we need to spend a long amount of time on it. But I ask the Minister whether he would explain, for the public record, a couple of provisions in this part.

The first is clause 124, “Roadways and rights of way”. It reads: “The permission of a council under section 348 of the Local Government Act 1974 is not required for laying out, forming, granting, or reserving a private road, private way, or right of way required by clauses 6.3 or 6.4.6 …”. If that clause does, in fact, exempt Ngāti Tūwharetoa Bay of Plenty from Resource Management Act provisions over land that is clearly not theirs, but gives access to particular sites that are part of the settlement, then I think that the Minister should explain why that is. The second provision relates to the issue of the Crown forests—or, should I say, the Crown forestry licences—on redressed licensed land. The issue there is that the trees above ground and any buildings above ground are excluded, but—and I presume that the Minister could explain it to us—Ngāti Tūwharetoa gets some right to use that land at some point. That, of course, brings about the question to the Minister of just how long the Crown Forestry Rental Trust will continue in existence.

I noticed earlier in the day, Mr Chairman, that you were wearing a very fetching scarf, and I am wondering where it has gone now.

I deliberately paused before taking this call, because I was hoping that the Minister in the chair, Mita Ririnui, would take a call. I think that my colleague Mr Brownlee has raised some very important issues. Some Ministers who sit in the chair frankly do not know anything about the bills they are in charge of. I do not believe, however, that that could be the case in this instance. The Hon Mita Ririnui knows in detail the nature of the settlement—he comes from the area, even though I appreciate that he is not Ngāti Tūwharetoa. Nevertheless, he has an understanding of the issues in the area. I think he owes it to Parliament to answer the questions.

I was also concerned about clause 121, which refers to the Minister of Conservation granting easements. That is a procedure whereby the claimants will get an easement over publicly owned land—land held on behalf of all New Zealanders, which presumably therefore all New Zealanders have access to as a matter of course. Nevertheless the claimants will get an access easement. Members can see the dilemma that I am faced with. People have access as of right anyway, by virtue of it being Department of Conservation land. But in this particular instance the claimants will get a special easement. I raise that as a question because I am assuming, as I noted at the outset, that the Minister knows the answer to this question. I believe he owes it to the House to give an answer. As my colleague said, this part of the bill is quite conventional and I do not have any other issues with it. But I do ask that question and I think the Minister owes us an answer.

I share the concern of Dr Mapp. I think this issue needs to be fleshed out further, and the Minister in the chair, Mita Ririnui, owes it to this Chamber to give a clearer explanation. This is the provision that gives effect to clause 6.3 of the deed of settlement, which states that the Minister of Conservation may grant these easements. It could well be that a block of land that has been put in the land bank and passed on to Ngāti Tūwharetoa Bay of Plenty may be landlocked. There are blocks of land in that situation, and I do not think anybody would have too much argument with a physical access being provided by way of easement over public lands, with appropriate conditions as would be expected. However, I draw the attention of the Chamber to some of the huge problems that other parties have had when dealing with the Department of Conservation. I would hate to think that the people who are benefiting from the settlement will suffer those problems.

I draw the Chamber’s attention to the Pike River coal issue in the South Island. There is a very valuable seam of coal, and a company has been trying to negotiate with the Department of Conservation for about 8 years to get access to its coalmine over a very small area of land involving about 2 hectares. One would not believe the tactics that the department uses to obfuscate, delay, and frustrate. I would hate to think that this great department of State, which I believe is out of control under this Government, will also be used to frustrate the people who will become the legal landholders following this settlement. That is one side of the issue.

The other side of the issue is a concern I have, not with Ngāti Tūwharetoa Bay of Plenty, but with the deed of settlement that was negotiated over the bed of Lake Taupō with Ngāti Tūwharetoa. In 1992 Jim Bolger’s Government signed a deed of settlement transferring the bed of Lake Taupō to Ngāti Tūwharetoa with some very important conditions. One condition was that full public access for all recreational pursuits and all scientific endeavours would be guaranteed at no cost. That was a condition of the deed of settlement. The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences had a major project studying New Zealand’s volcanology that involved the bed of Lake Taupō. It was very important work.

In previous years a mini-submarine came out and a marvellous film, Ring of Fire, was made. The Jago, a research submarine, sat in a crate on Auckland wharf for the best part of 9 months at a huge cost because Ngāti Tūwharetoa denied access for that scientific work in the bed of Lake Taupō. The Crown-owned institute bowed to the PC. It did not have the gall to stand up for what was a condition of that deed of settlement. I am sorry to say that the Labour Government, which was the Government of the time, was also not prepared to confront that issue. In other words, it was browbeaten and the institute was denied what was agreed under that deed of settlement.

There are two issues here. Firstly, we are saying that Ngāti Tūwharetoa Bay of Plenty will have to run the gauntlet of negotiating with the Department of Conservation—the monster department that is out of control—and there are concerns about that. I also want some sort of assurance that other conditions in any of these deeds of settlement will not block access, or replicate the situation that we had with the research submarine Jago regarding the bed of Lake Taupō.

I have spoken to those scientists and they are still extremely frustrated that they cannot do this work. They say that it is critical for their research work, which is important seismological and volcanological research. They are working on the Kermadec Trench, with all its brown smoke, as it stretches from the Bay of Plenty virtually up to Tonga. Some marvellous work is being done there, and there are a lot of new discoveries, but the scientists cannot complete their work by doing important studies on the bed of Lake Taupō, even though the deed of settlement signed by the National Government in 1992 assured full public access for all recreational activities and scientific research at no fee. Ngāti Tūwharetoa have reneged on that deal and are frustrating those research scientists who are trying to do their work. That is why I raise these concerns. It is all very well to sign these deeds of settlements but we need Governments with the gall to implement them.

I thought the previous speaker’s focus on Lake Taupō and scientific research was a little bit out of kilter with the bill before us.

I stand to support my colleague Dr Mapp’s query. As even the previous speaker Ken Shirley acknowledged, it is an important question. We would like an explanation about the easements over Department of Conservation land referred to in clause 121. My colleague made the comment that we would assume if there was public access already granted, then that would include Ngāti Tūwharetoa Bay of Plenty. So why are we now seeking these special access provisions? The other point that my colleague made was that the Minister in the chair, Mita Ririnui, has particular knowledge of the area under discussion. My experience during the settlement bills is that he has always been willing to rise and answer our queries. I see him looking at his green notepaper so I assume he has some answers for us.

Of course, he will acknowledge that getting some clarity around these easements is critical in Treaty of Waitangi settlements, because it is at this point that members of the public start to get a little bit uneasy about whether access or rights to certain sites and areas of land that they have enjoyed may be constricted. I am sure that that is not the case here, and I am sure the Minister will reassure us of that. None the less, in my experience it is sometimes at this point when commercial redress and statutory acknowledgments are being discussed—as modest as an acknowledgment or an access provision might be—that the hackles tend to rise on members of the public who do not always understand the reason for special provisions. Maybe that is rightly so in some instances.

If the Minister covers that area, then other access provisions that are present in Part 5 will also hopefully be covered by his reassurance to members of the public that none of the access provisions provided for in Part 5 of the bill will in any way affect rights that others have had up until now. In the end these settlements need to be seen in the context of being positive for all New Zealanders.

As Mr Brownlee said during his speech, this is a very straightforward part of the bill, and it is not necessary to spend too much time on it. But I will attempt to address the issues that have been highlighted by all the other speakers, as well as by myself. Gerry Brownlee referred to clause 124, “Roadways and rights of way”. Part 5 contains provisions that enable the Crown to transfer certain properties to Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau in a way that enables access to be protected. So it guarantees access to those blocks that would otherwise be landlocked. Some members may be fairly familiar with the discussion we had at the Māori Affairs Committee in relation to a particular area of land that was described as KA30. If the provisions in Part 5 were not made, we would basically give Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau ownership of land that it could not actually get to. A similar situation has applied in many of the previous settlements, as well as this one.

Mr Mapp was concerned about clause 121, “Minister of Conservation may grant easements”. Easements over Department of Conservation land ensure guaranteed access by Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau, as I mentioned earlier on, because they will be the owners of the forest in that particular area in the future as part of the settlement. There are already many similar easements in place throughout Crown forest land in the central North Island that are in favour of the current licence holders, so that they can maintain access to those areas.

Mr Shirley was concerned about Lake Taupō. We are actually talking about Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau, and the lake bed of Lake Taupō has nothing to do with that particular iwi, although there is an association there. In the first reading of this bill the Hon Georgina te Heuheu pointed that matter out to Mr Shirley, and this is probably an opportunity to do that again.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 367 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 5 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to, and Part 5 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1