Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill

The Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill has a dual-language title, and may be cited by either the English or Māori title.

Kāti, kia ora tātou kei roto i te Whare. Kai te Heamana, kai te Minita, ngā mema katoa, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Before I touch on the title of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, I will take this brief opportunity to acknowledge the quality of the information that the Minister has provided about this bill in the Committee stage, although it is very difficult for members on this side of the Chamber to accept a lot of his explanations in terms of various parts of the bill. However, that is the Government’s position, and it is to be respected.

What has not been acknowledged in the Chamber throughout this debate is the mistake the Māori Party has made in taking ownership over this particular bill. It is very important that in the closing stages of the Committee stage I stand in this Chamber and make comment about that. It is our premise that there is no way we can camouflage the issues in this bill by adding a Māori flavour to the title. The addition of “takutai moana” to the Foreshore and Seabed Act will just not sell it amongst Māori communities, regardless of how the Māori Party members who have spoken to the bill have tried to sell it to this House, and to the rest of Māoridom.

The Labour Opposition believes that the more appropriate title for this bill would be the “Marine and Coastal Area (Foreshore and Seabed) Re-enactment Bill”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I myself, the man who is standing in this Chamber and speaking on behalf of the central North Island, from the rohe of Mātaatua, Te Arawa, and Tākitimu, would call it the “Te Ao Hurihuri Bill”—in other words, the “Backward Flip Bill”, the “Return to the Past Bill”, because that is exactly what this bill is attempting to do. It stagnates Māori customary rights as of 1840, and by and large allows the authority of the Crown, or of New Zealand, to flourish and grow. That is why, when I was asked the question earlier during the couple of days we have been debating this bill: “What’s the name of that bill, again?”, I said: “Well, giving it a Māori flavour just doesn’t do it for me, because to me, kei te hoki whakamuri tātou [we are going backwards]—in other words, the “Te Ao Hurihuri Bill”; the one that takes us back into the Stone Age.

A lot of examples have been given by various speakers in this Chamber about where we think the Māori Party has gone wrong but is refusing to acknowledge it. We are not here to speak about Part 4, but certainly some members of the Māori Party, who do not admit to having or acknowledge they have law degrees, have not read this bill properly, and therefore do not understand the implications. As a result, they do not wish to stand in this Chamber and affirm that they have got it right, and maybe Hone Harawira is correct in challenging them on those particular points.

For example, let us take the burden of proof. The burden of proof still rests on Māoridom, no matter how it is worded in this bill. Yes, those rights that have not been extinguished by the Crown will remain, but the Crown can prove that over 75 percent of the coastline of Aotearoa is not subject to protected customary rights because those rights have been extinguished. I will give the Committee an example. In Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, and Ngāti Pūkenga had our customary rights extinguished in the period between 1840 and 1865 by way of raupatu, and the Crown can prove that. Actually, we are having a difficult job proving that it did not do that. The rest of the country accepts it, and previous Governments have accepted it, but as we are negotiating our way through these issues we are having difficulty in proving that the Crown acted illegally in our interests.

So when a Māori Party member stands in the House and says the burden of proof is on the Crown, I have to tell that member to get his or her head out of the sand and come back to earth. The Crown has no difficulty whatsoever in proving that rights in certain areas of the country have been extinguished. It is the same with Te Arawa and the return of the Te Arawa lakes. Te Arawa had to prove that they not only had had ownership pre-1992 but also had had ownership in the period between 1840 and whenever it was. It was a very difficult and costly exercise for them to go through. I remind Māori Party members—and Hone Harawira, whom they refuse to name, has attempted to tell them—that they have got it wrong. When they say to make no bones about the fact that this bill is their bill, well, I hope they can stand up without conscience in the Māori community and say: “Yes, we still take ownership of it.”, even though those Māori communities will have to prove they have a customary interest in their particular areas.

Maybe the member Rahui Katene will tell the people from where she comes, at the top of the South Island, that they do not have to prove they had a customary right, and that they do not have to prove that those customary rights were extinguished—because they were. They were. The Crown is currently in negotiations with her people now to compensate them for the loss of those rights. What is it about that that those people do not understand? Members can put all the nice language and legal jargon they like into these bills, but Māori still have to front up in court to prove their case. What do those members not understand about that? The Crown has no difficulty in turning up to prove that those rights have been extinguished; sometimes these debates can get up to a level where Māori can practically lose interest in them.

I think my colleague Kelvin Davis gave some examples of how this issue will affect Māori, as the rubber hits the road in their communities. Why would any Māori group make an application for the recognition of customary rights to collect hāngi stones? Why would they? I had an issue with that in 2004, because it was raised then. Why would any Māori make an application to the High Court for the recognition of customary rights so they can launch a waka? I had an issue with that in 2004; I have an issue with that now. Māori Party members had an issue with it back then, but they have refused to admit to that now. Those members should show some consistency. They should be true to their beliefs, and stand up and speak up. They should not do backward flips and try to convince our people that this bill is a good thing, because it is not.

There are actually no changes in the bill. There are changes in the words, but the substance of the bill, in terms of the ability of Māori to prove customary rights—I will use those words again: prove customary rights—means that that is still very, very difficult. The Court of Appeal said that, so what is it about that that those members do not understand? The entire South Island was subject to confiscation, and all those rights were lost. Ngāi Tahu have spent decades on trying to have those rights reinstated. What is it about the member from Te Tai Tonga, and her legal background, that she cannot accept or understand that? I have people in the Mātaatua and Te Arawa rohe who have not had the privilege or the type of education that that member has had—in fact, they have struggled with literacy—but they can work that one out. Every time they go to the beach to get pipis, they know that between them they can get one bucket. They know that when they go and dive for kina, they can get one bag. They understand that, even though the codification of those rights totally loses them. That is why I say to the member that when Te Ao Māori is codified, Te Ao Māori is removed from the Māori people. Members need to understand that. When tikanga is codified, it does not matter who makes the decision or who gives the advice; that is the legal precedent, and that is the end of it. What do they not understand about that? I am concerned that that member stands in this Chamber and tries to pull the wool over our eyes, and the eyes of the rest of Māoridom, in saying this bill is good for them, when Te Ao Māori, as they know, it is slowly disappearing. What is it about that that she will not accept? I had difficulty accepting her arguments in the Chamber this afternoon.

I do not often agree with Hone Harawira. Actually, I think he is a bit flighty, and I have told him that many times. But he touched all the right buttons today, and I have difficulty disproving him.

As the curtain closes on this particular debate I wish I had a lot more time to speak, because there are other members I would like to address, such as my whanaunga over there from Ngāti Awa. What will my cousin say to them when he goes back and tells them he voted for this bill? Will he say there is nothing in it for Māori, but that they will get to go to court? Will he say that it will cost $200,000, plus their lawyers’ fees, but they will come away with nothing, because they will not be able to meet the test of the burden of proof? As to all those rights that they may say the Crown confiscated—well, the Crown has plenty of evidence to prove that those rights were extinguished.

That is my contribution to this debate. I am very disappointed. I have sat quietly and listened to members make their contributions, but I am very disappointed at the level of ignorance that I have heard in the Chamber today. This is a very simple issue. This is about us, about Māori people. This is about our customary rights, but the codification of those rights changes them. There is nothing wrong with going to court and arguing our case, but when tikanga, manaakitanga, and all those areas that we hold valuable are codified, then they are no longer ours. Kia ora.

Kia ora tātou. It is a great pleasure to be able to record for Hansard that National has fought the good battle and won, along with our coalition partner, the Māori Party. It has given us support and shown us leadership on this particular issue, which clearly is a very important issue to this nation. The Māori Party has been the shining light in this discussion, in this conversation, in this debate. I acknowledge both the leadership and the members of the Māori Party for showing the way and finding the solution that will last until Parekura and I are well gone from this earth to the gods in heaven.

I also at this stage comment on and address the title of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. I was going to start my contribution by reflecting on the civility that has descended on this Chamber in this debate today. But unfortunately my taina, my whanaunga from the last speech, Mita Ririnui, has started to take it to the line. He used words like “ignorance” and so on. It was uncalled for. We do not need those words in the concluding stages of this debate. I will set that aside as a little blip from an inexperienced young lad, my younger relation, who is not able to show leadership, as I say.

I will talk to the title of this bill and the commencement date. In my view, the basic difference between the position of the Government and that of the major opposition—namely, the Labour Party—is around issues of codification. I know my good friend and colleague David Parker, in his contribution to the previous part of this debate, made reference to the cost of negotiating settlements as opposed to going to court, but I assure my friend that I have been through both systems. I have been through a court process and I have been through a negotiated process. Let me tell members that the most tortuous process is the court process, without a doubt. Without a doubt, the most tortuous process is the court process.

In addressing the commencement of the codifications we have put into the this bill, I will read a passage from the Chief Justice in her contribution to the finding in the Ngāti Apa case. It goes to the heart of the reasons why we need codification. This is what Sian Elias wrote: “I agree with Keith and Anderson JJ and Tipping J that In Re the Ninety-Mile Beach was wrong in law and should not be followed. In Re the Ninety-Mile Beach followed the discredited authority of Wi Parata v Bishop of Wellington … which was rejected by the Privy Council in Nireaha Tamaki v Baker”. Those cases date right back.

The point I am making is that if we follow Labour’s solution and leave it to the courts, I have no doubt at all that we will end up down the track, in another 20 or 30 years, with a new, ground-breaking decision by a court. In the same way that the Ngāti Apa case turned previous case law on its head, it will do exactly the same. I have no doubt that down the track it will lead to a new decision that will take us in a completely different direction. The proposed Labour solution of letting the court decide provides no certainty and no predictability for the people today.

That is what people want. They want to be able to go to sleep at night knowing that the foreshore and seabed is safe, that they have free access, and that they can actually go and recreate. That is what they want to know. In this bill, by codifying, we have been able to place a fence around the issues that the courts should focus on. That is all we have done.

Everyone talks about it. My friends from ACT—such as John Boscawen, whom I must admire for his tenacity, although I say to him to let us just be friends with regard to his contribution—keep talking about Māori definitions. If they read the bill they would find that almost all the Māori definitions except for one are actually from other legislation, where case law has already been developed in relation to those terms. The Resource Management Act defines, and has case law developed in relation to, most of the Māori terms. The bill refers to the Conservation Act, the Historic Places Act, and so on and so forth.

I think there is only one—at most—new Māori term in the bill. In fact, we have had a long discussion about tikanga. I thought about it yesterday; I should have brought my matua’s principled work from Hirini Mead, who wrote a thick book on tikanga.

Hon Parekura Horomia: That’s right.

PAUL QUINN: You probably have a copy in your office, e hoa.

Hon Parekura Horomia: We don’t need those in Ngāti Porou; it’s a living thing.

PAUL QUINN: No, no. This is for the Pākehā. This is for the Pākehā so they can understand. I am surprised that my taina did not produce it when he was talking about tikanga. My uncle has written the seminal piece of work on it. It is there for the courts to use as a guide.

I will come back to the point. By codifying, we can place a ring-fence around what the court can and cannot decide. That will be important as we go forward, when this bill comes into force after the date on which it receives Royal assent. Once it comes into place, we will have codification, and that will enable us to go forward as a nation in peace and harmony. We can put behind us the scourge of arguments we have had in this Chamber.

Thank you. It has been a great opportunity to contribute to this debate, and I thank the Committee.

Tēnā tātou. I roto i te tū nei kei te mihi kau ana ki tōku whanaunga e noho atu i roto i te mahana o te Tūru Kaiwhakahaere o te Whare. Tēnā koe. Kāore e mau atu i te maka kōrero mō i a koe engari, mō wētahi i roto i tō rōpū, me rātou mā, e maka atu i roto i āku. Tēnā tātou.

E mihi kau ana ki ngā āhua katoa mō te ture nei, mō rātou mā e kore i konei, mō rātou e whai kaha i te hīkoi tahi atu i te tai i Pōneke, mai i te wāhi o Te Oneroa-a-Tohe, kaha atu rātou i tērā tau. E mihi kau ana. Nā, te pai hoki kei te tae tata atu tātou ki te oti o te ture nei, ahakoa te whakaaro wehewehe i roto i āku mō tēnei take.

[Greetings to us. As I rise I acknowledge my relative sitting in the warm seat beside the Chair of the House. Greetings to you. I do not have anything critical to say about you, but I do about some in your party, and other members. I certainly have something disparaging to toss at them. Greetings to us.

I commend all aspects of this legislation, I commend those who are not here and those ones who have found the energy to march together to Wellington from the Long Beach of Tōhe. They were resolute last year. I commend them. It is wonderful that we have nearly completed the debates on this legislation, even though my views on it differ.]

I was surprised that the member across the other side of the Chamber Paul Quinn dared to suggest that my parliamentary colleague was his taina. I have always known that whakapapa, great as it is, from the maunga Mauao, and I thought he was the taina. “Taina” is “junior”. In the sense of the titling of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, it certainly smacks of “juniorism”, in terms of the suggestions that this bill will be the be-all and end-all. It could be the “Hullabaloo Bill”, or the “How to Pull the Wool Over the Māoris’ Eyes Bill”.

We need to go back, in retrospect, and remember that the issue arose of making sure things went to the court. My learned colleague David Parker is dead right. There is a cost to all of this. It is like our youngsters who get into the trap of recidivism. This is just like it. If they sin once under the age of 20, they sin six times, and they get taken to pieces by the legal beagles and those who snuffle in that trough. I hope that will not happen here. In the essence of codification, let us be sure who pays for it and how it is done in relation to all the relevant issues in the parts we have discussed.

There are wide-ranging notions in this legislation. Time will tell how we get through it, but let us all be honest and frank enough to say that that will be work over a period of time. For the sake of the member opposite, I tell him that I have no intention of leaving this planet any earlier than him. It is outrageous that he should get so dull as to start talking about that. That is how lopsided the member and some of his colleagues have got. They try to define what time we should leave this planet. It is bureaucracy gone mad! That is what this bill smacks of. The Māori Party has tried to couch it and it has just become over-endowed bureaucrats.

The Prime Minister said in 2003 that he was going to get rid of the Māori seats, so I was trying to encourage the Māori Party members to change their vote. As soon as this bill is through, next week he will get rid of the Māori seats. The difference in this vote is the four Māori seats. This bill is supposed to support the Māori seats.

The member also mentioned Wī Pārata. Pārata is a great name. I have some whanaunga who are named Pārata, but Wī Pārata was from another boundary. He said: “For you may take the land but all you have is the shadow. The land is Māori, and the soul of Māori is the land.” That is what Wī Pārata said in one of the early challenges. If the member quotes one statement, he should remember the better statements. That statement was one of his better political statements, and that is what this bill should be about.

Where I come from it is paradise.

Hon Tau Henare: Where’s that?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: It is paradise—Mangatuna, Houri. It is a great place; beaches abound. Seals still come up on the bank and bathe and there is kai moana and all of that stuff.

The issue is that no matter what the law provides for, we have always allowed people access, whether they are Pākehā, whether they come from the ACT Party, whether they are Samoan, or whether they are the local whānau. I was down at the Mōhaka River the other day and I asked this guy how long he had been there for. He said he was retired and had been there for 2 months. He said the Māoris had been letting him go there for 40 years. It is not suggested in this bill that Māori are as advanced as that in intellect, in niceties, in good behaviour, and in hospitality to people who want to visit.

I make the point that in some iwi the contiguousness of the land to the takutai moana gives them a real strong inherited right, which most of them have managed well. They do not need anyone to come along and tell them how to behave and why they should do that. That needs to be highlighted and remembered as we go along in this development.

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: You are effectively supporting the bill by that statement.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: No, Mr Mapp, it is different up north—people flog the whenua and all of that. In some areas where there is a congruity of the land to the takutai moana it is as a result of Māori hospitality, not the hospitality of the court or overseas people. It is the hospitality of those generations who have inherited that right through whakapapa and living there, and that is really important.

There is a bit in the bill about hāngi stones and launching the waka. I do not know who put that bit in there. But anyway, I was listening to my colleague David Parker the other night. We have to be explicit about what will help in this matter. The Minister for the Environment, the Minister of Corrections, the Minister of Women’s Affairs, and Ministers for everything else have a say on this issue. There needs to be some serious balancing. People need to go through the sense of the legislation. In some areas now at Christmas time, when we celebrate the “Great Being” and whatever else, Māori like to have a hāngi, but the Resource Management Act says they cannot light a fire. What is the use of having hāngi stones if one cannot light a fire? The point is this: there are contradictions in the law and they cut over tikanga and tuku iho. Darren Hughes likes having hāngi at Christmas. He is well practised in it. But the tikanga as versed in the Resource Management Act says we cannot use those hāngi stones and that it is no good.

I remind the Minister today—

Rahui Katene: The Labour Government could have done something about it during its 9 long years.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: We did great things. We kept the unemployment rate at 5 percent. It was not running at 27 percent. We made sure petrol prices were where they should be. We made sure people could pay their bills. We made sure people had a job. We made sure Māori Television started. We made sure the distribution of health services to preschoolers was really great. It was a great 9 years.

Hon Darren Hughes: That member voted for it .

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: And that member voted for it. She knew that we were good. At the end of the day it was a great thing.

Rahui Katene: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Relevance—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I have called a point of order. The exchanges in the Chamber will stop. There is a point of order. I do not care who started it; everybody will stop.

Rahui Katene: I fail to see the relevance of this to the part we are debating at the moment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The member invited it herself by her own interjections. If the member is going to interject in that manner she will have to expect some contribution back, and the unfortunate part for the member is that the member speaking has the microphone. It is a huge advantage. I say to the member that if she is going to interject, she should calculate that the other person has a microphone and might wander a bit further than she likes. Having said that, I have been signalling to the member with the call that he needs to come back to the point. It is a point well made.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Kia ora, Mr Chairperson. Tēnā koe, Rahui. In the early days, when I first came to Wellington to work out what was in the briefcase, I used to go with this great man called John, who was Rahui’s whānau. We used to go outside the Department of Social Welfare and protest. He used to tell me to line up out front at 1 o’clock, and we would make sure we put right the crooked Department of Social Welfare and the Government. He was working for them at that time. He would give us the placards and tell us where to stand. I would go and start yelling out for Mrs Bazley, or somebody else, to come out so I could ask them what the hang they were doing. Then I would look around and wonder where the other 200 supporters were. There was nobody. But that Māori was a great Māori because he defended tikanga. He did not shudder, or shut up, or go away. I was proud to know him, even though sometimes he would go over to America; he would come back with big Indian belts and give me one. He had international nuances that he knew about. I suggest to that member that I could teach her about some of the things he taught me.

Tikanga should not be left to law. Tikanga is something that we have to live and maintain, and we have to ensure it is enshrined in our being. It is not just about kapahaka and tā moko, which are great things. It is not just about those or about waka ama. They are great things for our young generations to participate in, and they keep going, but tikanga is about living those issues that are relevant to being Māori. That is all we want to see in this bill: the issues that are relevant to Māori. We may have to adjust and align but not sell out, and that is really, really important.

I feel for the 200 who are marching down the road thinking they are going to change the world; by the time they get here the Māori Party will have signed the bill off. There is nothing to come here for.

There is nothing like being a Māori MP. We get it from the Pākehās, like that silly woman over there who talked about holding one’s breath under the water and Alice in Wonderland. One wonders where the hang she is; she is writing Peter Pan notions. That is disgraceful and is the extreme of the other people in this country. We get it from our own cousins, our own colleagues, especially if we are Māori and are used to working as a minority amongst a whole lot of Pākehās, Africans, and everybody. We get it from everybody. Worst of all, we get it from our own whānau. When the hīkoi came down, I had whānau on the other side yelling at me.

I start off my brief stint by congratulating the Hon Parekura Horomia, because that speech was one of the best I have heard him deliver in the Chamber. It might not have been factually correct, but it was a hell of a speech. He was a pretty half-decent Minister of Māori Affairs, as well. I cannot say that about his colleagues, though.

The title of this bill is the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, but maybe the title should be the “Apology for the Sort of Stuff that Labour Did in 2004 Bill”. Let us get something straight. I have been sitting in the Chamber for the last 2 or 3 days listening very intently—

Hon David Parker: Ha, ha!

Hon TAU HENARE: —to the likes of David Parker. When I met him I thought: “This guy has a lot going for him.” I thought he would be the Labour leader, after Helen Clark. But then we got to the Māori Affairs Committee, and on a Friday night at about 5.50—

Paul Quinn: 5.05.

Hon TAU HENARE: At about 5.05 we were delivered a 500-page document and told we should all read it.

Hon David Parker: How was it delivered?

Hon TAU HENARE: Through the Internet. If anyone of these fellas has a BlackBerry, they should have been able to read it. They should have been able to read the executive summary, at least. I have been guilty of that before—I have read only the executive summary. I do not always read the whole thing, because we have work to do. I concentrate just on the executive summary. But could Labour Party members do that? I would expect one member to have read the executive summary, and David Parker is the one member I would expect to have read it. I did not think that Kelvin Davis would go home and read it, I did not think that Mita Ririnui would read it, and I did not think that Parekura Horomia would read it. I know these fellas; they will leave it to the Pākehā fella to read.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Hon TAU HENARE: That is the truth. So that side was let down; it was let down by none other than David Parker.

I have heard all sorts of stories in this debate, but I say this to all those people across the Chamber who have been referring to waka jumping, and this, that, and the other thing through this whole debate. I want remind members—in fact I want to school them up—of what was said by Te Kooti, that great Rongowhakaata leader. He said: “It might be a different waka that we all travel in, but the landing place is the same.” What we got from that was that the Labour members, in their wisdom—in their mind’s eye, that is—put through this House in 2004 a bill that was not particularly good. Fifty thousand people came knocking on the door to tell them it was not a good thing. Within 2 to 3 hours after the Court of Appeal decision had been made, politicians jumped on it and created a mess that they really could not get out of.

I was heartened to hear the Hon Maryan Street apologise, not once but twice. That is all I wanted. As far as I am concerned, all I ever wanted from the Labour Party was an apology. If that is the apology, I thank the member.

Paul Quinn: David was first.

Hon TAU HENARE: David Parker may have been first, but I would rather give it to Maryan.

Hon Darren Hughes: Are you going to rejoin the Labour Party?

Hon TAU HENARE: Rejoin? What does that mean? To rejoin, one must have been a member. I have never been a member of a foolhardy group.

Hon Darren Hughes: Did the member vote Labour?

Hon TAU HENARE: No, never. Let me tell members—and I digress, Mr Chairperson, because I have been challenged—that my first voting foray was in 1978 when I voted—[Interruption] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I think I want to hear the answer.

Hon TAU HENARE: I voted for the Hon Matiu Rata, who was standing as a member for Mana Motuhake, not Labour, in the 1978 or 1979 by-election.

Hon Darren Hughes: No, there was no by-election in 1979.

Hon TAU HENARE: The 1978 by-election?

Hon Darren Hughes: The 1978 general election.

Hon TAU HENARE: No, he had resigned his seat. It was 1979.

Hon Darren Hughes: 1980.

Hon TAU HENARE: 1980. That was my first voting foray. So I voted not for Labour but for Mana Motuhake.

Hon Darren Hughes: Why did he wait till he was 30 to cast his first vote?

Hon TAU HENARE: Ha ha! That was a good one; I will give the member that. But I go back to the bill. I have heard the discussion in the Chamber that this bill is about Māori this and Māori that. When we look at the bill, we see that it is about New Zealand. It is about an opportunity for both Māori and others, Europeans and others, to get it right. This Government has attempted to get it right, and only time will tell whether this bill is the right thing. I believe in my heart that it is.

I will give some examples of people’s access to the beach prior to the 2004 legislation and after the 2004 legislation, and what will most probably happen after this legislation. There will always be miscreants who will get on the beach and say to people: “You’re not coming onto my beach.”, regardless of whatever law we have. I bet my bottom dollar that individuals will get up, not representing any iwi or hapū other than their own self-interest, and tell whoever is listening to get off their beach, regardless of whether they have the right to do that. That will happen, and it does happen.

Hon Parekura Horomia: The rich people.

Hon TAU HENARE: It is not only the rich people; it is—

Hon Parekura Horomia: Yes, it is.

Hon TAU HENARE: You know, Labour members have got to get it out of their heads that rich people are stopping us from doing anything. That fact of the matter is that it is most probably the rich people who are damn well looking after the beaches, as we all should be—especially those people up on the East Coast and up in the north, which is my own territory, who continually say to tourists and to people from those areas: “Get off our beaches.” Well, they ain’t their beaches; they are New Zealand’s beaches.

This whole argument is not even about the beach. I tell John Boscawen, briefly, that the problem is not access to the beach. If people want to come to the beach—and I have a plot of land there—they can come and ask. Nine times out of 10, people will allow others to walk over their property to the beach. Access has never been an issue. It was always a red herring. What we are talking about is codifying and putting into legislation the bits and pieces that go with responsibility in terms of the cultural side of things—the tikanga.

I tell members that, like Jerry Matepārae, I am with New Zealand. I back the majority of New Zealanders, both Māori and Pākehā, to get on well, to have their barbecues on the beach, to have access to the beach, to protect wāhi tapu, and to protect those areas that mean a hell of a lot to us, not as a people but as a nation. That is what I see in this bill. I am past the time when I could get stuck into those members for that horrible thing they did in 2004, and I accept the apology that they have given. It means a hell of a lot, and I am not kidding. An apology for doing what they did in 2004 means a hell of a lot, but we have to move on, and this is the way that we move on.

With this vehicle we can move on to a better place for New Zealand. Let us deal with the issues of unemployment and economic recovery, instead of getting bogged down in what I term an unholy argument about race.

Firstly, I acknowledge the officials, who have been here for a long time this week. I thank them for being here and for the help they gave to the Māori Affairs Committee and this Parliament.

I will raise a couple of issues. Firstly, I will point out the logical flaw in Paul Quinn’s argument. Paul Quinn said that codifying the relevant tests for the establishment of customary interests settles the issue and will provide an enduring settlement, but I ask how that can be when the Māori Party, the coalition party that the Government relies upon to pass this legislation, says it disagrees. The reason Labour withdrew from a consensus on this legislation was that it had turned into a fiction. Māori Party members could not bring themselves to say that they accepted that this legislation was an enduring deal. If they had done, maybe Parliament would have had a different outcome now, and we would just about have unanimity on this thing. The Prime Minister did not go to the Māori Party and say that the Government needed it to acknowledge this bill as a full and final settlement of the framework for the settlement of customary interests in the foreshore and seabed. It is a failure of leadership, in the view of the Labour Party, on the part of both National and the Māori Party that they did not get to that point. The objective those members set for themselves was that this bill would settle things. So there is a logical flaw there.

The other thing I thought was interesting in Paul Quinn’s contribution was that he spent the first part of it saying how great it was that the Māori Party and National were cooperating on this issue. That is interesting, because a lot of people are effectively saying—and they are right—that a vote for the Māori Party is a vote for National. From the Māori Party supporters’ point of view, they see that as being a plague upon the Māori Party house. A lot of other people are saying that a vote for National is a vote for the Māori Party, and that is being seen as a plague upon National in the eyes of a lot of voters. It is really a plague upon both their houses. In a process sense this legislation is being pushed through quickly, even under the shadow of the Canterbury tragedy and the Christchurch earthquake, because both the Māori Party and National know those lines are correct; a vote for the Māori Party is a vote for National, and a vote for National is a vote for the Māori Party. That is why the select committee process was truncated. Both the Māori Party and National want to get this legislation off the agenda, because it is a plague upon both their houses.

I will also deal with something that the Hon Mita Ririnui said. I thought his contribution in respect of the member for Te Tai Tonga was appropriate. He was not making a personal attack upon her; he was just asking how she could stand there and pretend that the bill delivers what she says it delivers for Ngāi Tahu, when it does not. Ngāi Tahu do not favour the bill. They say the bill should go down.

Hon Tau Henare: She’s not there as a representative of Ngāi Tahu; she’s there as a representative of Te Wai Pounamu.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I agree that she is not here as a representative of Ngāi Tahu—her interests are broader than that—but she pretends that the bill delivers to Ngāi Tahu something that meets their aspirations, when it does not. It most plainly does not. I do not necessarily agree with Ngāi Tahu’s view on what the common law test would be if it went to court. In fact, I do not agree with them, but I do believe they should have the right to explore it, and I do believe them when they say their sense of injustice will last for generations, and will not go away through the passage of this legislation. Mita Ririnui’s criticisms of Rahui Katene were not personal attacks upon her; they were actually just showing that the position she takes is wrong and is ignorant in respect of what the bill delivers for Ngāi Tahu, which is very little, if anything.

In respect of that issue the Māori Party is hoist with its own petard, because through its—in my view irresponsible at times—rhetoric at one edge of the debate, during the debate on the last version of the legislation it created an expectation amongst Māoridom that would never have been delivered by the Ngāti Apa decision. The Māori Party is being hoist with its own petard because it exaggerated to the people it purports to represent an outcome that would never have been achieved. That is not what the law ever said.

The other thing Paul Quinn said is that the legislation makes the foreshore and seabed safe, and everyone can have access to them. That is a return to some of the arguments of the past that I did not like. I acknowledge that in Tau Henare’s contribution he made it clear that access to the beaches has never been an issue in relation to the Foreshore and Seabed Act. That was a fiction put about by Don Brash and other members of National. I have actually read out their contributions in the Committee stage, including Nick Smith’s—

Hon Tau Henare: And yours.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, we actually said in this House that access to the beaches was not at risk. We made it absolutely explicit in our contributions that it was never at risk. In fact, we also legislated through the Foreshore and Seabed Act that it was not at risk.

I agree with Tau Henare that access across people’s land to the foreshore and seabed is a completely different issue. It has never been an issue in terms of the Ngāti Apa foreshore and seabed decision. There are places in New Zealand where, as my colleague Parekura Horomia has said, access down to the beach is increasingly difficult. That is a different issue, I agree, but it is a practical issue in parts where some private owners are exercising their property right to exclude others and are stopping people from going across their land in a way that was not the case in prior years. That is not a foreshore and seabed issue, as Parekura Horomia makes clear; it is another important issue.

The legislation has a new name. It is the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. It could equally be called the “Replacement Foreshore and Seabed Bill”, because it is actually not much different from the original Act. It is not much different. The main difference is that someone who has proved to the court that they have a territorial customary right now does not have to go to the Crown to negotiate to get their rights back; they can get a remedy from the court. That is an important change that Labour agrees with and indeed submitted to the review committee. Yes, the threshold tests are a bit different, but they are not very different. The creation of the new definition of public space as a space that somehow no one owns is a legal fiction. What matters is not whether the space is held by the Crown or held in some other name; what matters is the different rights people have in respect of that space, and those bundles of rights are largely unchanged.

I am saddened at the lack of leadership shown by both the Māori Party and National in not getting us to a settlement. That is the task they set us, and because National was not willing to call the bluff of the Māori Party and say it could take it or leave it, and because of the unwillingness of the Māori Party to offer up acceptance that the settlement was fair, we have left New Zealand with uncertainty—

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: No, you’re the ones who’ve done that by your hype, actually.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I tell Dr Mapp that that is not correct. I might quote again what he said in the Committee stage of the last version; he said that large tracts of the foreshore and seabed would not be accessible to non-Māori. That is something that should stand as a stain upon that member’s record in this House. The reality is that this bill does not settle the issue, because the Māori Party and National have not been able to reach an accommodation between themselves acknowledging that this legislation is full and final. The Prime Minister has not required that of the Māori Party and the Māori Party has not offered it. John Armstrong was right when he made that analysis in the New Zealand Herald. National moved a long way. Labour was willing to move a little way. We did not actually have to move very far, because we were a lot closer to the Māori Party than National was. But we were willing to move even a bit further than that. The Māori Party had to move just a little way. It actually had to show a bit of leadership. As Tau Henare said, its members are not here to represent just an iwi interest. We are here representing the interests of all—

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: They actually have shown leadership by their vote today.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, they have said at co-leader and senior whip level that they do not accept that this bill is a settlement, and that it is but a first step. That is a failure of political leadership that is bad for this country. The access issues were never an issue. Sadly, this bill should be called the “Failed Attempt at Settlement Bill”. I think it is lamentable, because we got very close. We had the opportunity. Even if one of the Supplementary Order Papers that would flick it all back to the courts had been voted for, that would have settled it, too. There were a couple of ways in which this bill could have resulted in settlement, but it did not occur.

I acknowledge the contribution of David Parker. He has contributed significantly to this debate, both in the House and in the Māori Affairs Committee. Some comments Mr Parker has made this afternoon I strongly disagree with, and I hope to explain that in the course of the next 5 minutes; if not, then on Tuesday.

Mr Parker began his address this afternoon by acknowledging the officials, and let me reiterate that. I thank the officials in the Chamber this afternoon for their support, and I thank them for their advice. They are always willing to contribute to, certainly, my understanding, and that of the other members of the select committee. ACT members kept the officials and the other staff in the precinct of Parliament last night until after midnight. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we do not apologise for it. The reason we did that—and I say this to the officials and to the staff of the parliamentary complex—is that we strongly oppose the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. We said we would fight this bill every step of the way. We have done that, and we will continue to fight it next week. We do not resile from the decisions we have taken and the actions we have taken.

I will point out why we are right. If people listened to some of the speeches this afternoon, they would understand that. What did we have from Tau Henare this afternoon? He said within 36 hours of the decision from Dame Sian Elias in the Court of Appeal in 2003, the politicians had jumped out and created a mess. The politicians had jumped out and created a mess. He went on to say that this National - Māori Party Government has attempted to get it right, but only time will tell. Well, what a great contradiction. What Tau Henare has acknowledged this afternoon is that politicians’ interfering in this matter has created a mess. One would think it would be a pretty simple exercise, then, for the National Government to use its majority to repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, and to send the matter back to the courts. But, no, it actually wants to add to the mess. National members want to add to the mess and confusion that Mr Henare has accused Labour of creating.

Then there was Rahui Katene. In fact, Rahui Katene has made a number of interjections this afternoon that would not have been placed on the record. I want to write those into the record, because the interjections I have heard—albeit quietly—from Rahui Katene this afternoon are absolutely correct. They are absolutely correct, and I believe that this bill is a big victory for the Māori Party. It is a massive victory for the Māori Party. As Tariana Turia co-wrote last week: “For a small party, we have achieved amazing results in a short time.” Rahui Katene, in response to some of Mita Ririnui’s comments, continually called out: “I understand the right to go to court.” Well, I understand the right to go to court, too, and the ACT Party understands the right to go to court.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 5.55 p.m.