In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori.

20 years later, history is repeating itself.

Today the government has announced they will be amending the Marine and Coastal Area Act to make it almost impossible for iwi to claim ownership of their foreshore and seabed.

In order to claim customary title, the Marine and Coastal Area Act required iwi to prove continuous, undisturbed use of their land since 1840.

Even this threshold was too generous for the government.

They are planning to raise the bar even higher to extinguish any hope that our rights will be recognised.

The Crown have run out of land to steal, so they are coming for the land under our moana.

Moana Jackson said: “The forces of colonisation demanded that there only be one site of power, that there only be one supreme sovereign.”

It is time for us to step into our tino rangatiratanga and break the Crown’s colonial monopoly on power.

Tangata whenua have always had undisturbed ownership and rights over our whenua, our resources, and our taonga. The burden rests on the Crown to prove their rights.

Governments come and go, but our mana motuhake will remain.

Te iwi Māori will not allow this all-out assault on our whakapapa to continue.

The activations across the motu were only the beginning.

E te iwi Māori, kia mataara, kia rite tonu mai, kia tū tahi tātou!

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