I worked with him in Parliament when he was an Act New Zealand MP. He was a jolly fellow, an ideological pragmatist happy in his work. His recent exposition on individual property rights is very on his conservative political point.
The article was good timing for me. I had sent in my submission to the select committee on the fast-track Bill and spent the weekend mulling over my primary argument in that submission — the protection of property rights.
The Fast-track Approvals Bill has been on lots of minds these last couple of weeks. There are many issues with it.
For environmentalists, the Bill is a disaster. Hard fought-for environmental protections will be overridden with destructive infrastructure projects. Despite the anti-environmentalist rhetoric, the Bill will affect people from all walks of life and all across Aotearoa.
We need only think of the risk to the walks, rivers and parks that our families have loved for generations. Tramping clubs, community conservation groups, river care and wetland restoration groups will witness generations of their hard work being undone.
Not everyone likes that fact, but it is one. Many submissions will ask for its return as a constitutional obligation on the Crown, as mine does.
And there is the property rights issue that I am not sure has had a full airing yet.
The Bill has a criteria for projects that are ineligible for the fast-track process. One of those criteria includes where there has been a customary marine title granted by the court under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011.
That Maca legislation, enacted by the John Key-led National government,
replaced the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004.
The Foreshore Act was roundly condemned by Māori as a racist attack on both Māori property rights and the constitutional right to go to court to have property rights determined.
The National government’s Maca Act was a better solution. The leaders of the National Party and the Māori Party stood side by side in 2009 to announce the 2004 Act would be scrapped in favour of the new legislation that upheld Māori property rights.
Fifteen years later there are 200 unheard applications under the Maca Act. No more will be lodged because the Act has a time limit for applications.
So 200 iwi and hapū applications are waiting for the courts to determine the extent of their property rights in the marine and coastal area.
But maybe not. Because the land in these applications is eligible for fast track projects under the fast-track Bill.
If a fast-track application includes a part of the marine and coastal area where there is Maca application, that land could become irreparably harmed by the project and rendered unusable by the iwi. The iwi would lose their property rights only because there wasn’t enough time to hear their application.
This is not what National promised in 2011 when the Bill was passed. National promised to uphold Māori property rights.
John Key even did a little video assuring New Zealanders that iwi would be able to go to court and test their rights to customary land in foreshore and seabed. He said: "We believe as the National Party that that’s a core fundamental principle of justice and of property rights."
Property rights are a foundational value (as Gerrard Eckhoff said) for right-leaning parties such as Act and National. The fast-track Bill therefore poses a big values challenge for the National coalition government.
Can they be trusted to uphold even their own principles?
Government priorities change and policy approaches change. We expect that. Hopefully we would consider it progress.
But foundational values should not change with the prevailing political winds. That is why we call them values.
Surely a National-led government has an obligation to its own principles to protect iwi property rights?
It should not matter whose property rights they are. Only that these foundational principles are not breached by policy makers or the legislators.
Otherwise there are no guidelines for government policy-making, no trust in their statements and no confidence in their decisions.
In short, not good governance.
■ Metiria Stanton-Turei is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party MP and co-leader.
