Backpedal on seabed law

By RUTH BERRY


The government may change plans to vest the foreshore and seabed in full Crown ownership and give itself a trustee role instead.

A number of options involving trusteeship, put to the select committee examining the proposed law, are being seriously explored.

Under most of those options, the Crown would not extinguish Maori customary title in order to assert its ownership, but would act as a trustee managing the coast until claims were resolved.

Under some proposals the trusteeship could be permanent, but would expressly accommodate custodial titles and could involve joint trusteeship with Maori.

Variations to the proposals are also under consideration.

But the idea may fall foul of New Zealand First, whose support gives the Government the votes to pass the legislation.

NZ First leader Winston Peters' agreement to support the bill was contingent on Crown ownership.

He warned yesterday that while constructing the right model was important, any deviation from the "principle of Crown ownership" would not be acceptable.

United Future is more receptive to the trustee concept, believing Crown ownership represents confiscation to Maori and is therefore inappropriate.

But the Government could only afford to lose NZ First's support in exchange for United Future if it recaptured the vote of Tainui MP Nanaia Mahuta.

Ms Mahuta, when appearing before the committee on Monday, advocated joint iwi-Crown trusts where territorial rights were established.

Tuwharetoa and the Crown had a similar arrangement over Lake Taupo, she said. Submissions by Ngati Whatua, Ngai Tahu, Hauraki iwi and Auckland Emeritus Professor Jock Brookfield promoting different versions of trusteeship are also being considered.

The committee has finished hearing submissions and is due to report to Parliament early next month. The Government wants the bill's second reading soon after.

Overwhelming submitter opposition has increased pressure for changes and intense negotiations are now beginning again.

Government ministers have refused to comment on any potential changes while the committee deliberates.

But sources say versions of trusteeship are being seriously investigated at top levels, with at least some Maori MPs pushing it.

One well-placed source said "there is still a debate about whether ownership is to be vested in the Crown". There might be better ways of expressing how the Crown held the estate on behalf of everyone.

Committee chairman Russell Fairbrother said its members were "seeing this as a major issue and I think they are looking seriously at all the options".

He would not rule out a change away from vesting the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, but did not believe the "concept of the Crown" would go.

"Crown ownership in its purest sense incorporates aspects of trust - it's held by everybody on behalf of everybody and, of course, Maori interests are a special part of that."

United Future committee member Larry Baldock said it was too early to say what such changes might be and whether they would be semantic or substantial.

His party was worried that vesting ownership in the Crown alone would make it easy to sell. Some of the trustee models might address that concern.