Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement (Regional Agreements) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Chairperson, for accepting my call. I will canvass the clauses set out in Part 2, but before I do that I place on record my congratulations to the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee and to all the members of the select committee. Members may not have noticed this, but most, if not all, of the bills that come back to the House from the Māori Affairs Committee do so with the unanimous support of that committee. It is no wonder that members on both sides of the Chamber join as one in commending the excellent work that the Māori Affairs Committee does.

Having placed those comments on record, I will cover a couple of provisions of Part 2. This part is the operative—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Which page?

It is Part 2—page—

💬 Simon Bridges: How many clauses?

—well, there are a number of clauses in here. Firstly, I will focus on clause 7, which sets out the Crown’s obligations in respect of this particular bill. Members will see a number of insertions are to be made into the principal Act, and—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Amendments.

—these amendments; I thank my colleague—are the operative parts that enable—

💬 Simon Bridges: You’re pretty passionate about this, aren’t you?

—ha, ha; excuse me—the proposals to be carried out. Those proposals are to replace or bring into effect the fact that, if you will, the undertakings made in what has already been referred to, quite correctly, as the pre-commencement stage may be able to be fulfilled with a lump-sum payment. These provisions of this bill will enable that.

I now move to clause 9, which is on the next page, I say to Shane Jones. Members will see there some specitivity around, or it makes some reference—

💬 Simon Bridges: Specitivity? What’s specitivity?

—to section 31, as amended by the substitution of new subsection (4).

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Oh, this is really excruciating.

Please!

💬 Hone Harawira: Can you take your seat, please, Mr Quinn?

I am being distracted.

💬 Hone Harawira: You’re coming apart!

Yeah. Just again focusing—

💬 Hone Harawira: Have some more oysters.

—ha ha—on that, as I said, I wanted to draw the Committee’s attention to that section. I think that the rest of Part 2 is all pretty straightforward.

My concluding remark is that I hope that brings a better understanding of the bill. Thank you.

Kia ora tātou. After having followed that presentation, which was defined—

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Did you follow it?

I followed it not in a comprehension sense, but, perish the thought, in the physical sense. I want to direct our attention to regional agreements, and in particular, to subsections (4), (5), (6), and (7) of new section 29A, inserted by clause 8 of the bill. There is a lesson that has been applied in this section, pointed out in subsection (6), where it states that “No court or tribunal has jurisdiction to inquire into the quantification or the adequacy of the benefits to be provided by or under a regional agreement.” Of course, what this refers to—and I give full marks to the Māori Affairs Committee, which worked through this legislation with the advisers—is that we will not see a reversion to the protracted debates as to who and which party should get which particular entitlement as a consequence of the regional agreements being agreed to. Māoridom has been blighted by no end of litigation as to what was an adequate entitlement in relation to the historic fisheries settlement. So, without sounding too nauseous, ngā mihi. I acknowledge the chair and other members of the committee, who have prevented a repetition of that.

However, the bill goes on to say—and the qualified, senior lawyers in the House would know this—it is impossible to close down the right of appeal to the High Court. Indeed, our party has learnt that as a consequence of the seabed and foreshore exercise. The High Court will have as part of its inherent jurisdiction, I dare say, under subsection (7) the ability to perform an interpretative function. As the regional agreements are entered into, there will inevitably be conflict. Why will there be conflict? Because many of those agreements will reflect the ancestral aspirations of the hapū and tribes who have historically occupied harbours and other areas along the takutai moana, along the foreshore. They will have had, over the years, their own favoured sites for mātaitai gathering, etc., and the regional agreements are really an attempt to shoehorn them into an industry. These agreements cannot be based on a static view of where and how Māori live along the coast, because aquaculture at the end of the day derives its revenue and its power, in terms of an economic force, from international markets. So that is a very sensible contribution in my view.

For those participants who cannot get their affairs into order, or who acknowledge that they actually need a trustee to enter into the regional agreements on their behalf, the trustee will be required to abide by actionable obligations—actionable duties. But it is always a double-edged sword when one provides justiciable ability in relation to Māori issues. What might be settled on the marae—I can assure members that getting agreement over seafood assets is no mean task—through negotiation needs only one party to feel slighted about before that party dashes off to find an ever-ready lawyer, whose contribution is inversely related to his or her cost structure, and then one is back to somewhere near zero. So the fact that the duties of trustees enable them to enter into such regional agreements and be bound by those agreements is very sensible, providing it does not lead to a fresh bout of litigation.

In addition to that, the reference to the trustees is important because the participants in the regional agreements must focus on aquaculture as part of the New Zealand resource-based economy, not focus on it being a new theatre for conducting historic and largely irrelevant debates that have very little to do with the future economic pathway of Māoridom and more to do with recitations of history of a time that has passed us by. It is likely to become particularly problematic and vexatious when we get to the point of making decisions about harbours, because some harbours are regarded as areas for collecting spat. Others are regarded as areas for growing the mature product into a form that the market can absorb. I support having less litigation and more economic activity. Kia ora tātou.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.