Worth another look, all right

OPINION: The Foreshore and Seabed Act doesn't look to have a great many defenders nowadays, writes The Southland Times in an editorial.

The Government is on the brink of axing the legislation and starting again, and it appears even Labour, which drove the law through in the first place, realises it made a mistake trying to rush through legislation to put as prompt and emphatic a cap as it possibly could on concerns that public access to the coastline might be imperilled.

Maori insist that excluding other New Zealanders was never their intention, but there was great public concern when a Court of Appeal case suggested iwi able to prove continuous customary use of the foreshore and seabed might have been able to convert this into freehold title.

Feeling the political heat, and determining that it needed to act emphatically and swiftly, Labour acted in a way that left Maori feeling mugged – specifically denied access to court to test their case because they were so very, very mistrusted.

The act blocked them from seeking title through the courts. Though it did open the door to compensation, it represented such a smackdown that Maori anger erupted.

Maori saw the law as a land grab and, just as vividly, felt they had been denied equal access to the courts. This, in turn, led to the creation of the Maori Party.

Whatever happens now, Prime Minister John Key has made plain that beach access for New Zealanders cannot be negotiated away.

Maori, who tend to find such talk galling, insist that they know that, they have always known that, they feel the same way themselves, and they just wish people would get it that, even so, Maori customary rights are no less legitimate, and no less entitled to legislative and judicial acknowledgment.

So what's to be done? Frankly, the Government has been well served by its review panel, which hasn't proposed the replacement of one piece of hasty legislation with another.

Instead, it proposes the sober and sensible first step of an interim law recognising both customary rights and general public access.

This would they allow time for more work on a replacement law to set up a longer-term solution.

What might that be? Possibly a national settlement – including compensation.

Or it could become a more piecemeal deal of hapu-by-hapu talks. Or a mix of both.

There is scant real likelihood of taking the whole shebang back to what really would be square one, and allowing Maori to test their customary rights in court.

The panel itself shook its head at the "protracted, laborious and expensive" route this represented, and the prospect for "an unmanageable patchwork" of rules that would most likely result.

That is not to deny that difficult issues still remain; not the least of which is bringing clarification to the legitimate boundaries of the rights of customary title.What we may well see, however, is that though the new legislation gives rise to intense negotiations, it won't be with Labour lamenting that there was nothing much wrong with the first law.

There was.

- © Fairfax NZ News