Paul Goldsmith: Treaty Negotiations Minister on the passing of the changes to the Marine and Coastal Area Act

The minister responsible for the Marine and Coastal Area Act says the Government would have passed the bill even if the Supreme Court had agreed with a lower court's ruling against it.  

The Government will proceed with the bill which will tighten criteria for Māori claiming Customary Marine Titles.  

Justice and Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith told Mike Hosking he thinks the settings will be right after the legislation's passed.  

He says they want Māori to be able to apply for the titles but there has to be a high bar. 

Goldsmith says they want to move on this quickly, and he’s hoping to have the legislation introduced in October. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But green Light on the foreshore and seabird been stuck
in court of course, But essentially we're looking to head
back to twenty eleven of the way it has been
when it comes to customary title. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith
back with us. Paul morning, Oh, good morning. What have
you been doing. It's been in court. I mean the
Supreme Court ruled in twenty twenty three. Been mucking around?
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
No, no, no, not twenty three. What happened was it
was the Court of Appeal that ruled, which sort of
ignored the second part of our test, which was a
high test before customary Marine title was awarded. That is
because it has real consequences, it's got valuable rights and
it has the ability. Owners of CMT have the ability
to turn down resource consents for certain things on the

(00:39):
coastal area. So that's why we had a high test.
Court of Appeal did that at the end of twenty three.
We introduced this legislation last year and it went off
to sleek committee and then the Supreme Court overturned the
Court of Appeal and that's what complicated things. We've spent
a couple of we've spent a bit of time just
working our way through the consequences of that, and now

(01:01):
we've resolved to press on with the Supreme Court did.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Half the job, but we want to do what if
the Supreme Court hadn't gone against the Appeal Court, well.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Then we would have just carried on with our legislation
and passed it in descended.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Exactly, because why, Paul, you are the ultimate court in
the land. Who gives some monkeys what the appeal Court says?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, no, I mean, we obviously take very seriously what
Supreme Court says, or the ultimate court of the land.
If you want to do something, do it, yes, But
you know, we take these things seriously and we think
through the consequences of it all, and we're clear what
we want to achieve, which is that we want to
be able to provide the opportunity for Mari customary rights

(01:39):
to be recognized. But we also want to protect the
legitimate interests of all New Zealanders because everybody obviously has
an interest in WORS on the coastal area.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, we do.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Basically, you're going back to twenty eleven, right, because you
had it sorted in twenty eleven. It's just a few
agitators hired. I'm sure at taxpayers expen some lawyers to
go to the Appeal Court then the Supreme Court. That's
how it unfolded, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, I mean lots of people argue about all these
legal issues, and so what we're trying to be clear
about is that, yes, we want to have the opportunity
for people to go get customer marine title, but that
does have real valuable rights and that's why Parliament set
a high bar. We want to make sure that there
is a high bar.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Are we any materially different? Once you get this lot
through from where we were in twenty eleven, Well.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
That's where Parliament thought it was in twenty eleven, but
of course this all goes through the courts and yah.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
But that's my point. So you knew where you were
because the ultimate Court of the Land in twenty eleven
made a very clear statement on what it was, and
you somehow catau to these court proceedings and decided to
muck around since twenty eleven on this and finally we're
getting back to where we were in twenty eleven.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
No, I don't think that's quite an accurate timeline. The
law was passed in twenty eleven and then it took
about ten years before some significant cases reached the High Court,
and that's when we saw the consequences of the interpretation
and that's what we're set to correct at the moment.
And so I want to be very clear about those
thresholds that there's two sort of things that have to

(03:08):
be determined ta Kung and then secondly undisturbed possessions since
eighting forty.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Timeline on what you're doing now, when's it ticked off?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
We're just finalizing the drafting. We hope to get it
all done by October.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Appreciate your time as always. Paul Smith Paul Goldsmith, the
Justice Minister.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
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