Hon Christopher Finlayson

Part 2 Provisions relating to transfers of assets, allocation principles, Crown agreed proportion, and DSP properties

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): I have only one other question that I want to raise about schedule 2, and I would be grateful for the guidance of the Minister in the chair, Mita Ririnui. My question concerns clause 13(e).

Clause 13 provides—I think, sensibly—that the adjudication panel will have complete discretion to determine the process and the timetable for the hearing. That complete discretion is subject to certain requirements, and they are more particularly set out in paragraphs (a) to (g). For example, paragraph (g) provides that a decision is to be reached by 25 June 2011. But I am interested in paragraph (e), which states: “there is a right to question witnesses;”. What I would like to know, and maybe we need clarification, is whether that right to question witnesses relates only to the adjudication panel, or whether an iwi claimant can also ask questions of another iwi claimant. If I were to proffer an opinion, I would say it means both: that the panel could ask questions, but that iwi claimants should also have the right to test evidence by way of cross-examination—by asking questions of witnesses for other iwi.

What we do not want, in the course of the adjudication panel hearing this matter, is to have some kind of eleventh hour application for judicial review. I know that these sorts of questions have been subject to judicial review in the context of commissions of inquiry. I seem to recall a case concerning someone called Badger, where the person presiding over the commission of inquiry was a former Attorney-General, Dr Martyn Finlay, and the case was held up for some time while the parties went to the courts.

That is my interpretation, but I would be very grateful if the Minister could give some guidance. Does the right relate to the panel alone asking questions, or is there also the right of iwi claimants to ask questions and to test the written evidence that will have been filed by another iwi claimant?