Maori coastal claims ridiculous and racist

Michael Laws

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OPINION: It was pre-destined from the moment the Maori Party determined the membership of the review panel. The Foreshore and Seabed Act was going to be toast and only the extent of the browning was the issue.

Judge Eddie Durie, a minor Treaty academic and the daughter of Tipene O'Regan do not make for impartial commentary. Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples joked that even if this handpicked trio did not produce the desired result, he would sack them and find another coterie that would.

Attorney-General Chris Finlayson knew all this at the time so presumably had an exit strategy already in mind.

But it is going to have to be good. The act represents the will of most New Zealanders and neatly settled a nascent issue. Despite the protestations of activists, Maori never had customary rights to the beaches or inner harbours. They were simply developing this legal device when former prime minister Helen Clark slammed the door shut.

The beaches are for everyone, she declared. Neither colour nor culture should determine access or ownership.

And who could disagree with that? Only those who seek to claim a peculiar and particular status based upon race. Or that other great chimera: a status based upon being tangata whenua.

It remains one of life's mysteries as to why those migrants who scrambled onto New Zealand's shores first are provided a status that exalts their citizenship above all others. This is a nation built by many waves of migrants Maori, European, Pacific Islander, Asian, South African. That one has precedence is ridiculous and racist.

Indeed, there has already been too much liberal bending on this matter. All that has occurred, as a consequence, is that every new concession has just delivered a new quest. The ultimate aim of the Maori Party and others being the development of a separate Maori state and/or recognition of Maori as super-citizens.

Which is why the Nats have a problem with this particular genie. The seabed review has heightened expectations in Maori activist quarters that there shall be either privilege or cash. Preferably both.

At the same time it has renewed non-Maori anxiety that another especial privilege is to be granted. And that the birthright asserted by Clark is not as tangible as they once considered.

Whatever the outcome, it will not be elegant. It will clearly involve reconciling irreconcilable opposites and creating fresh grievances. Even if there is going to be some sort of joint management of the coastline cue more bloody bureaucracy then coastal iwi will require compensation. Their assertion will be that their customary right conveyed an ownership obligation, despite the denial of Sharples.

There is little point having a right unless one can exert and utilise it. Successive governments have gifted such status in the hope that it is meaningless a hollow title that bestows recognition but not responsibility. It might work for this generation: it won't work for the next.

Fortunately the Key government has a powerful parliamentary ally. As part of its post-election mea culpa, Labour has now decided that it is not going to play "the beaches are for everyone" card. There was too much collateral damage in its Maori constituency, even though it outscored the Maori Party list vote by two-to-one.

Which leaves just United Future's Peter Dunne providing a heaven-sent opportunity for the lone MP to express the view of middle New Zealand. He has already clashed with Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia after the Te Tai Hauauru MP claimed that monetary compensation was only fair. After all, tut-tutted Turia, that's what you get "when you steal or take something that isn't rightfully yours".

And in that one utterance John Key and Finlayson have been fore-warned. Their parliamentary allies do consider that the seabed and foreshore or good parts of it is a Maori preserve.

Although Dunne's solution makes the same mistake as previous treaty settlements. Gift Maori something in exchange that sounds good, he suggests, but doesn't mean much. And he used the example of renaming Mt Cook as Mt Aoraki. And it didn't cost a cent.

But it does. It concedes a right that does not exist and confers a privilege that should not. More importantly, it advances the nonsense that being tangata whenua gifts one more rights than the next person. It establishes a cultural aristocracy that is entirely alien to a democratic society.

Which is why this National government must explain what exactly is wrong with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Its sole purpose was, after all, "to preserve the public foreshore and seabed in perpetuity as the common heritage of all New Zealanders". Sounds fair to me.