I can hardly see you

They are going to ram the Bill replacing the Foreshore and Seabed Act through parliment over the next few days and when they do the maori party will stand guilty of lowering rights for maori. One aspect of this legislation is to solidify that maori rights are lessor than other rights and they do this by creating Customary Title. The stipulations around Customary Title are only for maori not for any other owner of the foreshore and seabed. Those private owners have wider rights than maori and the maori party will create and vote for that position. It is all over for them.

A good press release from Green Party Co-leader, Metiria Turei.

The hikoi that is making its way down the country highlights that National’s foreshore Bill is the same as the deeply flawed and unjust 2004 Act, said the Green Party today. “I would to acknowledge and pay my respect to the hikoi takutaimoana that is making its way into Auckland today... Maori have been denied representation in the super city, and this new foreshore bill discriminates against Māori. This cannot go on, it is time for the voices of Maori to be heard. This bill should not go forward as it is.”

“This bill is unfair as it does nothing to change the status of the 12,500 existing private titles in the foreshore and seabed. This creates a double standard which treats Māori rights as inferior. “Nothing in this bill will stop owners of private title stopping access or selling the foreshore into foreign ownership,” said Mrs Turei.

This point is also explained well by Moana Jackson in his primer

... However that “Maori customary title” is not the title exercised by Iwi and Hapu prior to 1840. Neither is it the full and exclusive title guaranteed in the Treaty of Waitangi. Rather it is a limited bundle of rights subject ultimately to the presumed authority of the Crown to define their limit and extent. They are necessarily subordinate rights. For example they are less than those that might be held by a Pakeha person with land contiguous to the foreshore and seabed. Indeed the Crown has stated several times that while they are a “property interest” they are something less than a freehold title. That is not only discriminatory but a blatant redefinition of tino rangatiratanga and any accepted understanding of mana tuku iho.

The maori party will let us down in the worst way - they are becoming smaller as they move away from the people.