Members of iwi Ngati Kura clamp four cars at Matauri Bay and clamp four cars belonging to students on the beach for a surfing lesson. The group, armed with a portable EFTPOS machine, demanded $800 from Kamo Intermediate principal John Smith and only unclamped the students’ cars after he had paid up.
PETITION: Reverse the Marine and Coastal Areas Act!
CONTEXT:
In 2011, the National-led government passed the 2011 Marine and Coastal Area Act (MACA). Prime Minister John Key and Attorney General Chris Finlayson assured concerned Kiwis that the legislation would result in very few successful claims for our coastline, and that our concerns over the loose legislation were unfounded.
Predictably, the 2017 deadline resulted in opportunistic claims being lodged for the entirety of New Zealand’s coastline. Currently, 200 of these are cluttering up the High Court and another 385 are subject to behind-doors negotiation with Government. The ongoing consequences are draining the time and coffers of self-funding counterclaimants, Councils, RMA applicants, and taxpayers, who are obliged to fund all Māori claimants. There are ongoing community disputes at several beaches around the country.
How these cases are handled by the courts has gone far beyond even what Kiwis were concerned about back in 2011. The Court of Appeal has recently supported an earlier ruling that deemed that the requirement for claimants to have ‘exclusively occupied’ an area has no connection to any dictionary definition or even what was intended and that the highly variable ‘tikanga’ must be an overarching consideration in the hearing of claims.
These interpretations of the law will facilitate much of our country’s coastline, beaches, estuaries, harbours, and territorial sea passing into the control of various groups which identify as Māori. This control extends to the airspace above, the water space, plus the subsoil, bedrock, and mineral wealth below.
This impacts our country’s sovereignty, economic development, business costs and efficiency, corruption levels, conservation efforts, citizens’ recreation, law and order, and race relations.
The new National-led Government must reverse the ill-conceived MACA legislation of an earlier National Government.
PETITION: We, the undersigned New Zealanders, call on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and the National-led Government to reverse the Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011 and secure New Zealand's coast, beaches, estuaries, harbours, and territorial sea under Crown control for the benefit and enjoyment of all Kiwis.
Ngati Kura wheel clamp extortion
Iwi erect fencing and padlocks to enforce coastal rahui with blessing of Police
Tribal Maori have been emboldened this year as evidenced by Ngati Awa elders who, in the wake of the White Island tragedy, issued a rahui banning the public from accessing the Bay of Plenty coastline. The ban included the erection of fencing and padlocks, blocking access to Whakatane wharf. This allows a startling glimpse into our future under the Marine and Coastal Area Act: while boaties and fishers might feel free to ignore a ban issued by an Anglican pastor or Catholic priest, it is difficult to ignore a spiritual prohibition when your boat is barricaded by fencing and padlocks with the sanction of local police.
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Coastal area
Please sign our petition to Restore NZ beaches to public ownership
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Problem
Treaty Minister Andrew Little and the High Court are about to surrender ownership rights over massive areas of New Zealand's coastline to private Maori interests.
Politicians told us lies: They reassured us that hardly any claims would succeed as claimants had to prove that they had used the area "exclusively” since 1840. But the first “Treaty style” agreement awards the tribe 15 km of beach, even though the public had used the beach for fishing, swimming, hiking and the like since 1840. Unless the law is changed, Minister Little and the High Court are likely to grant coastal tribes irrevocable ownership rights over massive areas of beach and seabed.
What you need to know:
Public ownership Until a few years ago New Zealand's entire coastline, the foreshore (the bit that gets wet) and seabed (extending 22km out to sea), was owned by the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders.
Confiscation In 2011 National passed a new racist law, the Marine and Coastal Area Act, which confiscated public ownership and created Customary Marine Title, which only Maori could claim. The public (including Maori from other tribes) will be relegated to visitors to tribally owned beaches, areas that we once ALL loved and shared.
Claims As a result, private Maori interests lodged nearly 600 claims that will take decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve.
Secret deals The law allows claims to be negotiated by a Minister without scrutiny.
Lies National Party politicians reassured us that hardly any claims would succeed as claimants had to prove that they had used the area "exclusively" since 1840. But the first Agreement awards a tribe title to 15km of beach, even though the public had used the beach for fishing, swimming, hiking and the like since 1840.
Why does it matter?
Coastal owning tribal aristocracy The new law will create and enrich a coastal-owning tribal aristocracy, which may gain ownership of valuable seabed minerals, charge for boat ramps, block competitors wanting to set up businesses such as mussel farms, and charge fees for cultural "consultancy", which nobody wants or needs.
We think that our valuable seabed minerals (worth billions) should be owned by all New Zealanders for the benefit of all New Zealanders.
Private beaches “Sacred areas” will become off-limits to non-tribal members, enforceable by fines, and tribes will be able to ban coastal activities according to unwritten tribal law.
Tribal bully boys Some tribal members have already illegally blocked public access to "their" beaches.
Inter-tribal tension The hundreds of overlapping claims will create tension between Maori, which will linger for generations.
Resentment If the law isn't changed, we face a future filled with resentment, with arguments in Court and fights on beaches.
How are claims being resolved?
Many of the hundreds of claims will lead to private Treaty style "deals" negotiated between the Minister and his officials and tribal leaders. The public is excluded and Parliament usually signs such deals off. The rest of the cases will be heard in the High Court.
Corruption Treaty style negotiations, conducted behind closed doors, open the way to political corruption. The first Agreement, negotiated by former Minister Chris Finlayson (and which Parliament hasn't yet signed off), grants the tribe rights to manage riverbed hangi stones up to 22km offshore. While this sounds absurd, it was simply a way around the rules laid out in the Act to allow tribal leaders to control a massive area of seabed.
Issues with the High Court Instead of throwing overlapping claims out (the claimants can't all have used the beach "exclusively"), it appears that the High Court will allow claimants to divvy up the coastline between them.
No public body is defending public rights Only a handful of men and women, largely lacking in legal skills and funding, have been left to defend public ownership of our foreshore and seabed in perpetuity. Even worse, some claims may be successful simply because no one or group has the millions of dollars or time needed to defend public ownership against the hundreds of claims and appeals before the courts.
Taxpayer funding To add insult to injury, taxpayers have been asked to fund tribal claims up to $412,000 per claim. This has already cost us tens of millions of dollars and will likely cost hundreds of millions.
How many New Zealanders support the radical Maori agenda?
Politicians may fear a return of the "hikoi from hell". But in the 2014 election, just 31,850 or 1.3% of New Zealander voters supported the Maori Party’s radical agenda. And these 31,850 votes represented just 7% of voters of Maori descent. The other 93% of Maori just want to get on with their lives as ordinary Kiwis.
Public ownership needs to be restored NOW before public rights are irrevocably transferred to private Maori interests.
The only way out of this mess is to change the law to:
- restore full rights of public ownership over the foreshore and seabed
- affirm the right of tribes to continue customary activities
- repeal Customary Marine Title
- end secret deals with the Minister by moving all claims to the High Court
- allow tribes to enjoy the same rights (no more, no less) as those enjoyed by other private groups seeking to protect the environment
- provide compensation to anyone who would be out of pocket as a result of these changes
Petition to the New Zealand Parliament:
We the below signed urge Parliament to amend the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 as mentioned above so as to restore full legal and beneficial ownership of the public foreshore and seabed to the people of New Zealand.
Thank you for your support on this important issue.
Don Brash & Casey Costello
pp
Hobson's Pledge
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Transitionary provisions:
What happens to the claims?
All claims will be transferred to the High Court where they can proceed under the amended rules.
What about the first signed Agreement?
Parliament should refuse to ratify the corrupt Ngati Pahauwera Agreement. Pahauwera itself was unhappy with the Agreement and is continuing to pursue two cases for the balance of its unmet claims through the High Court. Please refer Ngati Pahauwera Agreement
What about the Mutton Bird Islands Case?
The tribe’s customary practice of landing waka will be unaffected by the removal of Customary Marine Title.
Ngati Porou Agreement sets stage for hundreds of “grace and favour” MACA deals
While the public are in general too busy to notice yet another “Agreement” between the Crown and tribal groups, Ngati Porou’s foreshore and seabed Agreement, which confers inalienable legal rights on Porou, sets a dangerous precedent for New Zealand’s future: Parliament has a choice – it can remain a member of the small group of prosperous liberal democracies that follow the Rule of Law (as opposed to rule by law) or it can enact the Ngati Porou Bill[i], setting a precedent for future “grace and favour” deals over the foreshore and seabed in which the Minister exercises powers of gift outside our constitutional framework, established over centuries, to define and curb Ministerial powers.
Read moreMarine and Coastal claims – will they affect coastal walking tracks?
In 2011 the National - Maori Party coalition passed the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act (the “MACA”), a radical Act allowing Maori groups to claim special rights over the foreshore and seabed. As a result over six hundred claims have been lodged with the Crown, Courts, and Waitangi Tribunal. While these claims may take decades to resolve, the public’s rights over the coastline remain in a state of uncertainty: the question is, will the new law affect coastal walking tracks and how?
Read moreFirst Marine and Coastal Area Agreement sets precedent for decades of fresh Treaty negotiations
The first Agreement negotiated under the Marine and Coastal Area (Tukutai Moana) Act 2011 not only confirms widely raised fears of the Crown’s failure to represent the public interest but sets a precedent for fresh rounds of Treaty style negotiations.
Read moreBrash legal advice: letter from Attorney General Finlayson on MACA misleading and unworthy of Parliament's first law officer
Dear Prime Minister, you will be aware that over the last few weeks more than 100 claims have been made to the high Court by iwi under the Marine and Coastal (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 for customary marine title and protected customary rights.
Read moreMarine and Coastal Act's costly shambles will haunt country for decades
Touted by National as offering a durable and expeditious solution to Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Act, Chris Finlayson’s Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 (MACA) has unleashed hundreds of competing claims that will tie the courts up for decades, costing the country tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in claimant funding, policy advice and legal fees.
Read moreNgati Kura wheel clamp extortion
Members of iwi Ngati Kura clamp four cars at Matauri Bay and clamp four cars belonging to students on the beach for a surfing lesson. The group, armed with a portable EFTPOS machine, demanded $800 from Kamo Intermediate principal John Smith and only unclamped the students’ cars after he had paid up.
Sources:
[1] SunLive, Friday 13 Apr, 2012: Beach Extortion”: http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/24126-beach-extortion.html