Maori Party starts to talk detail on foreshore bill

The Maori Party says it would seek to reassert the right of Maori to go to the Maori Land Court to lay claim to the foreshore and seabed under legislation that would repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

It has yet to draft a member's bill on the issue but says it plans detailed talks soon with parties that might support it.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples told the Sunday Star Times he believed National would support repealing the Act, the Greens would support it and so would the Act Party.

That would mean 60 votes, with one more needed for a majority.

United Future has three votes, and has not decided how it will vote.

Green MP Metiria Turei said Maori should be able to go to the Maori Land Court "to have the status of the land identified".

"We would also support legislation to amend the Te Ture Whenua Maori (Act) or Maori Land Act so that any customary title in foreshore and seabed could not then be turned by the court into private title," she said.

National Maori affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee told National Radio his party was interested in sitting down to look at the legislation once it was drafted.

"We know that the current legislation does not give the protection to things like access and usage of the foreshore and seabed around the country that the Government would currently claim."

The issue would come before Parliament again "just whose bill and what it looks like is what's... at stake here".

Dr Sharples said today on National Radio that his party had a job to do to secure support for its legislation.

While not yet drafted, the Maori Party had talked about what its bill would do.

Under the current legislation, the Government could do what it liked with the foreshore and seabed, Dr Sharples said.

"They can sell it, they can stop people using it. Even if Maori do claim some sort of rights and usage through the new law, Government can just snap their fingers at any time and repeal that."

Dr Sharples said his party's bill would give Maori the right to go to the Maori Land Court to sort the issue out.

"It does not guarantee them at all that they would own the foreshore, not at all."

Due process was blocked by the Government's Foreshore and Seabed Act.

The party had to find a way of granting access that would satisfy everybody, he said.

The Maori Party had talked to United Future about the bill, but not in any detail.

"The detailed talks will begin very shortly," Dr Sharples said.

All members' bills go into a ballot box and one or two are usually drawn every second week Parliament is sitting. There is usually more than 30 bills in the ballot.

The Foreshore and Seabed Act came into effect in January.

The legislation was passed following a long-running row that began in 2003 when the Court of Appeal said the Maori Land Court had jurisdiction to hear claims to territory below the high tide mark.

The judges ruled that Crown ownership was not completely certain and it was possible that a claim to a customary title could in some cases convert to a private title.

The Government legislated for Crown ownership and said it had put into written law all that Maori could have achieved under common law through the courts.

But many Maori argue the law amounted to land confiscation.

- NZPA