Hone Harawira

Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill

Hone Harawira, Maori Party Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau

Wednesday 17 March 2010; 9.30pm

Mr Speaker, this bill raises a few issues for us as a Maori Party.

One of them is the compulsory acquisition of private land; an issue made hugely important to Maori, and to the Maori Party, by the Labour government passing legislation to get their hands on great swathes of the Foreshore and Seabed, when they couldn't get the courts to give it to them; a piece of legislation described by a government review committee as the "single biggest land nationalisation statute enacted in New Zealand history".

Now according to various sources there are some 12,500 foreshore and seabed parcels in private ownership, and about 30% of land adjacent to the foreshore is privately owned as well, some 2,000 kilometres by Maori interests and about 4,000 kilometres in non-Maori hands.

During the review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act, one of the three Commissioners, Kai Tahu educator Hana O'Regan, said that the issue of private land was a mess, leading to people often being misinformed of their rights.

She said recently that "There is a huge dearth of knowledge and a high level of ignorance in coastal communities over what their rights are. We found huge tracts of land that were inaccessible because they are in private land ownership, and it wasn't Māori ownership."

Hopefully this bill will be the opportunity to finally investigate why non-Maori private land, has historically bypassed the legal scrutiny and examination, always visited upon lands held by Maori.

Mr Speaker, another area that we would question, is the definition of the words necessary and appropriate and in the public interest in reference to projects.

For example, is it right to call the Transmission Gully Project necessary or even appropriate when in fact there are other options, and deep questions yet to be answered?

And by the same token, should we define the term in the public interest, along the same lines as the expectations outlined under the Public Works Act?

Because if we are, then we need to note the numerous claims to the Waitangi Tribunal resulting from the historic use of public works legislation to dispossess Māori of their land - cases such as:

Whaingaroa, Raglan, taken from the Māori owners during the Second World War for use as an airfield which was never built, then handed off to pakeha afterwards for a golf course;

Takaparawha, Bastion Point, taken under various guises, such as defence purposes and not given back;

Watson Park in Gisborne, taken from Rongowhakaata for a cemetery and not used for that purpose;

And closer to home, land at Paraparaumu taken from the original owners under the Public Works Act, for the purposes of an airfield at the outbreak of war, but never returned when the war was ended.

Mr Speaker, my colleague, Te Ururoa Mike Tyson Flavell, has put forward a "Public Works Amendment Bill" which will require the original owners, Maori or Pakeha, to be given the right of first refusal to purchase land taken, but no longer needed, for public works, and we will be watching the progress of this Bill to see that the "interest of the public" includes the interest of mana whenua, the people of the land taken.

Mr Speaker, we have questions over this Bill - but we will support it through to first reading to enable the issues to be raised, and the questions to be asked, and hopefully answered.