Bill sparks protests by Pakeha and Maori

By TONY GEE, JON STOKES and BRIDGET CARTER

A Far North Maori iwi says it will impose beach access permits after refusing to accept yesterday's passing of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill.

In a day of incidents over the passing of the legislation, Auckland police are investigating an axe attack on the front window of Prime Minister Helen Clark's electorate office in Sandringham Rd opposite Eden Park.

In the Waikato, the head of the Tainui Waka Alliance, Harry Mikaere, said the iwi had been betrayed by the "treacherous" decision of Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta to support the bill.

At the same time, Ngati Kahu, an east coast iwi in the Far North whose rohe (district) includes the Doubtless Bay and Karikari Peninsula area, issued a statement saying goodwill between Maori landowners and the public since 1840 had run out with the bill's passage.

Ngati Kahu has been strongly opposed to the legislation, claiming that although the public have been welcome to use the beaches in its area, the iwi are the true owners.

Two iwi spokesmen, Archdeacon Timoti Flavell and Atihana Johns, said Maori landowners in the Karikari Peninsula and Whatuwhiwhi areas had resolved to restrict access to beaches and foreshores where their land adjoined those coastal areas. Permits would be issued to gain access.

The same would apply to people fishing in the iwi's traditional fishing grounds who had no traditional rights to take fish.

Whether Department of Conservation land, which includes the department's popular Matai Bay camping ground, will also be the focus of any Ngati Kahu action is unclear.

Ngati Kahu runanga chairwoman Margaret Mutu, professor of Maori studies at Auckland University, said the public had never been allowed to go out to Cape Karikari - across Maori land - because it was a rugged area and too dangerous.

If people wanted to access a foreshore or beach area adjoined by Maori land, they should ask permission.

Professor Mutu said Ngati Kahu had issued public notices and told the Government and local bodies that the foreshore and seabed law would not be applied in the iwi's area.

Yesterday, police cordoned off the Prime Minister's office and later studied a phone booth in Williamson Ave, Ponsonby, for clues in their investigations into the axe protest.

A spokeswoman said police believed someone rang Radio New Zealand from the booth, telling staff that there was a package to be picked up on Ponsonby Rd, referring to flyers recovered by police on Ponsonby Rd near the footpath.

The flyers said the attack on the Prime Minister's electorate office was a Pakeha protest about the Government's attempts to steal Maori land through the bill.

They said the broken window expressed the "broken justice" of the foreshore and seabed legislation.

Helen Clark said the attack was "violent criminal behaviour" with no place in a democracy.

What the flyers said

Tonight concerned Pakeha vented their anger and disgust at the Government's attempts to steal by confiscation and without consultation, Maori land in the form of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill by attacking the electorate office of the Prime Minister. The broken glass symbolises the broken justice of this issue and we call upon other like-minded New Zealanders to commit their own acts of civil disobedience to send a clear message that such injustice can never be accepted.