Foreshore & Seabed: National’s ‘Public Domain’ A Raw Deal For Non-Maori

“It is now more than six weeks since the very short public consultation (20 working days) on the Foreshore and Seabed Review closed on April 30th. Yet no summary of submissions nor public release of submissions has occurred”, says Dr Hugh Barr spokesman for the Coastal Coalition. “This shows how farcical the government’s so-called consultation process with the public has been.”

“While National ministers are spending endless hours consulting with iwi on their foreshore and seabed proposal, they seem determined to ignore the concerns of the wider public about their plan to effectively privatise over 10 million ha of New Zealand’s coast to iwi.

The present legislation, which vests ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders, is stable and is working. “If the government wants to change it,
it should be consulting equally with those who stand to lose a great deal - business, aquaculture, coastal communities, recreation groups, and local government.”

“But this is not happening. The debate is very one-sidedly between National and Maori”. Yet industry and the community have billions of dollars invested, and at risk. As well they are major users.”

“The most likely reason that the submissions have not been disclosed is that they will clearly show that National’s presumption that non-Maori are happy with National’s cavalier strategy of repealing the present stable legislation, and imposing instead the nonsense of ‘public domain’ is false.”

“How can ‘public domain’ be owned by no-one, when National is offering very strong ownership rights with customary title, which clearly shows it will be owned by iwi. This is very high risk strategy both for National and for the community and business, as gaining exclusive control (ownership) of much of this area is certainly what iwi want and expect.”

“None of this was part of National’s 2008 Election promises, so it all needs to be openly debated before any legislation is introduced to Parliament. National has done its best to keep the concerns of non-Maori out of the spotlight, but that is not acceptable.”

“While Maori stand to win major privileges from the proposals that National has put forward, non-Maori will be the big losers as power and control over the country’s richest natural resource - covering an area that’s equal to over a third of New Zealand’s dry land area - are stripped away”, Hugh Barr said.

ENDS

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