to whom it may concern

"ignorance of the law is no excuse". the law of NEW ZEALAND is commercial law and that law is very specific on how property is treated and by what form of contracting is utilised to convey the rights and remedies to it. there are only two classes of people in this world, creditors and debtors. creditors hold property and associated rights and remedies and debtors provide settlements in that regard. regardless of who said what or when does not impact on accertaining who is what class unless it will directly affect this determination. let the law proceed to sort out who is who.

john ru

maori, this! maori that!, what about the other 87% of NZs population, Thousands of NZers are living in poverty and we have this greedy bunch trying to take our taxes, should be spent on the health sector not maori claims, they`ve had enough, time to axe MMP and the treaty!.

Matt #1 - attitudes like yours will encourage the legal owners of the land to consider limiting access. You get what you ask for. Why not focus on the decades of generosity by the legal owners?

Repeal it, yes; however no to compensation.

How come Maori can claim ownership of ALL seabed and foreshore? New Zealand in 1840 was a scarcely populated country. Maoris did not live in each and every place along the shoreline, did they?

Just like the smacking debate - the law is working - why change it?

Just like the smacking debate - there is a group who have to feel they have won.

National will not rest until it has churlishly wound-back everything Labour achieved during the nine years National would like to believe it had not spent on the opposition benches.

You stupidly assume Maori want to settle at all - that makes not commercial sense. Pakeha need to recognise that Maori have always actred altruistically with regard to access & fishing over customary & freehold titled land, this can not be disputed & given the value of such kindness (which is not offered by anyother group) wider NZ should be grateful. Your awful summary of the foreshore & seabed act is shameful. What the act does is extinguish property rights without consent AND without compensation. (This is actually called theft by the UN) What Maori should do is start thinking like Pakeha and not simply "sell" rights, but start charging "mainstream" NZers for access. The profit is then long term & the benefits real for Maoridom. This is what "mainstream" NZ should be weary of, not settlement! Rangi.

Hey Family man #7 What we did for the crown to wrong us was be legally in possession of large amounts of land, that needed to be freed up for the settlement. In the case of the seabed & foreshore, labour needed the votes to counter the Brash Orewa offensive. Again we were legally in possession of large amounts of land, which happened to be covered by water, but legally still our land.

If you don't like the law and the treaty, form a political party and change it. If these blogs are anything to go by you should get a landslide majority.

Well done stuff on inciting racial division by only opening comments on controversial subjects like this, and not pro-maori stories, such as your own "Seabed act likely to be axed" by Colin Espiner.

And we were protesting against this, but the Government still went through with it. You sleep in the bed you make - if you didn't want to worry about compensation, don't pass discriminatory legislation (that we wholely opposed to start with). Your fault Government, deal with it.

RE: Pete #5, What did your 21st cousin (48 times removed) do, for the NZ government to single out your family, presumably for generations? It must have been really bad. Has your family appologised to the crown for your 21st cousins (48 times removed) actions? I think, for us all to move forward, the first step would surely be an apology.

what I would like to know, is what is the "compensation" for? Were you prevended from going to the river of the beach? Were you prevented from harvesting shellfish, within the quota limits set by MAF? Were you involentarily held, or given trespass notices?

I have never had any trouble visiting any NZ beach with my family, and would be shocked to hear if you have. If you have, on what grounds was it? Surely you could have taken it up with the police, as no-one has proprietry rights to the beach, so no-one can force you to leave. Unless you have broken a law and have been legally detained by a MAF or police officer.