Part 4 - Administrative and miscellaneous matters
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : Part 4 of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill sets out procedures relating to the recognition of customary interests either by agreement or order of the court, and it deals with some administrative details. The part I particularly want to focus attention on is Subpart 1, which provides the procedure for the recognition of customary interests. It can be done by either recognition by agreement, or recognition by the court.
Part 3 - Customary interests
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : Part 3 is a very important part of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. It sets up the legal rights and interests that give expression to the customary interests in the common marine and coastal area. It has three subparts. Subpart 1 provides for affected iwi and hapū to participate in certain conservation processes, subpart 2 sets out the test for, and rights associated with, protected customary rights, and subpart 3 sets out the test for, and rights associated with, customary marine title. I will be very interested in the debate on subpart 3, because those are very important questions.
Part 2 - Common marine and coastal area
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : Part 2 of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill has three subparts. The first outlines the basic interests in the common marine and coastal area, and this includes the important clause that provides for the special status of the common marine and coastal area as an area that cannot be sold. I do not intend to go through the way in which we reached the concept of a common marine and coastal area.
Part 1 - Preliminary provisions
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : I will make just a couple of preliminary comments about Part 1 of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. The part sets out—not surprisingly, given its title—certain preliminary provisions. They outline the purpose of the bill. There is a very important and carefully defined Treaty clause, and clauses that provide some definition of two terms: “accommodated activity” and “deemed accommodated activity”. They are activities that do not fall within the customary marine title permission rights.
Preamble
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : The preamble is a reasonably brief part of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, but it sets out quite a lot of history. Recital (1) states that the starting point of the debate over the foreshore and seabed, which has gone on for many years, was the decision of the Court of Appeal in Attorney-General v Ngāti Apa. The response of the Government of the day was the Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Attorney-General: Is it his intention to further progress the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill this week?
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Attorney-General: What changes, if any, is he proposing to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, and why?
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Attorney-General: Has he asked the Māori Party to agree to amendments to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill that would make it explicitly clear that customary title holders would not be able to charge individuals for accessing a beach, and require any negotiated settlements to be referred back to Parliament for validation; if so, what response did he receive?
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : As is always the case with the member David Parker, that speech was a very useful contribution. It seems that this is the first time we have heard from a Labour member in this place an acknowledgment that the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act is discriminatory because it unilaterally extinguished the uninvestigated customary property rights of Māori, and, more important, in the early 21st century denied a significant section of the population the right of access to the courts. So that was a very important admission on the part of that honourable member. It seems to me that one issue of principle—and I am looking forward to the debate in the Committee of the whole House, because the member has raised some very important issues—is whether we should codify or simply send the matter back to the courts and enable the courts to work it out. I think that is a very important question, and it is a very fair question; I thank the member for raising it.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Attorney-General: Does the Government intend to proceed this week with its legislation to replace the existing Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004?
