The Foreshore and Seabed legislation has been shrouded in controversy since first passing into law in 2004.
Non-Maori fear that a deal has been worked out between the government and the Maori Party which could open the way for Maori to claim large tracts of coastal land. They fear that free public access to beaches and the sea could be lost under Maori ownership
Iwi-Kiwi billboards erected in Auckland and Wellington by the anti-bill lobby group, Coastal Coalition, claim the government has kept people in the dark about “the extreme legislative changes they are planning.”
One of the billboards shows Prime Minister John Key giving away the foreshore.
Former Prime Minister Don Brash agrees that there is an ‘atmosphere of fear’, but only time will tell whether it is justified. Anyone should be able to use the court system to establish if they have a legitimate claim to the foreshore and seabed, he says.
“Having said that, I am troubled by the proposal to allow iwi to negotiate with the government in lieu of going to court… it leads to the possibility that significant chunks of foreshore and seabed could be handed into iwi ownership or iwi control…”
Upon successfully achieving an agreement to repeal the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act, the Maori Party announced in a June press release that they had also achieved recognition from the government that the foreshore and seabed must never be sold and public access would be guaranteed.
Fears that public access to coastal areas will be blocked by iwi are foundless, say Maori.
Lawyer and activist Moana Jackson explained the traditions which underpin Maori claims to customary titles in a statement presented to the Ministerial review panel in 2009 on behalf of Ngati Kahungunu Iwi.
In Tikanga or Maori traditional lore, there is no distinction between land, foreshore and sea – they are one.
“For in our tikanga the whenua has never just been what others may call the ‘land’. Rather we conceptualise it as everything that nurtures, flows through and is interwoven with it. The seabed is merely land surging with water and the ‘foreshore’ is just the step between where the water may rest and rise.”
The (former) Labour government, in justifying the need for the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act, inferred that Maori could not be ‘trusted’ to guarantee public access, he said.
“Indeed our people have many stories of establishing kauhanga or passageways to allow other people to use a fishing ground or enjoy a beach. The kauhanga were in effect a right of access.”
Legal Scrutiny
Mr Brash says whatever the process the final outcome must stand up to legal scrutiny and not be the ‘result of a political tradeoff’ between government and iwi, nor should it disadvantage New Zealanders in general, he said.
David Round, law lecturer at Canterbury University and expert in treaty affairs, says claims to the foreshore and seabed are not the result of ‘alleged historical injustice.’
“We are at the stage where the country is being torn apart… [Maori] are sensing the government’s weakness.”
“There is no treaty basis for this. We are not talking here about some ancient historic injustice which is being righted by this. This is simply a claim which is being made essentially because the Maori Party has got the government over a barrel…”
The act will be ‘unrepealable’, says Mr Round. It will potentially allow Maori to own a third of New Zealand.
