Foreshore and seabed to be public

Posted by karere under Maori News

The foreshore and seabed is to be removed from Crown ownership and any “uninvestigated” Maori customary title extinguished by the last Labour Government’s contentious Foreshore and Seabed Act will be restored, under proposals just announced. A discussion document released today outlines the Government’s proposals for what should replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act once it is repealed. It says the Government believes it is time for a new approach to ownership. “Instead of identifying an owner, the new legislation would explicitly provide that no one can own the foreshore and seabed. It will be declared to be a public domain.”

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Customary title for Maori key part of foreshore and seabed plan

Posted by karere under Maori News

No ownership and Maori being granted customary title form the basis of the Government’s preferred option to repeal the divisive 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act. Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson will release four options in a consultation document due today but such is the sensitivity of the issue that yesterday he refused to comment. The other three options involve two variants of Crown ownership and one which explores Maori ownership. In February the Herald reported that the Government had put the no-ownership option to iwi and that United Future MP Peter Dunne thought that creating a “public domain” in law could see present regulatory regimes continue.

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Experience shared for China fishing push

Posted by karere under Maori News

Maori fishing companies are looking to China and other offshore markets as they plot a course ahead. Iwi and fishing interests are in Napier for the fifth Maori Fisheries Conference. Te Ohu Kaimoana chief executive Peter Douglas says this year’s Shanghai expo has focused attention on one of the largest markets for seafoods. Speakers pointed out it was not one large market but a series of significant regional markets for particular products, which needed to be handled carefully. “The idea that you might be able to have a small visit where you might be able to sell 50 cases of this or that isn’t the best way to go about your business in the Chinese market. The best way to do it is to do it in a collaborative sense, making use of people’s experience, connections,” Mr Douglas says.

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Foreshore law options to be revealed

Posted by karere under Maori News

Proposals to replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act will be issued tomorrow, Prime Minister John Key has announced. National has signalled it will repeal the law following a review last year, but is yet to say what will replace it. Mr Key said on Monday the document would offer different options, but would make it clear which one the Government favoured. National agreed to review the Act as part of the governing arrangement with the Maori Party, which has been holding hui around the country to discuss possible replacement models.

Although the Maori Party has not publicly declared a preferred option, Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira has proposed a model that vests ownership of the foreshore and seabed with iwi and hapu, while at the same time making it inalienable - meaning the land cannot be sold - and guaranteeing access to all. He has claimed that policy has been agreed by the Maori Party caucus. The thorny issue of ownership is one that will need to be addressed in the discussion document. The Act was passed by Labour after the Court of Appeal said Maori could take claims over the foreshore and seabed to the Maori land Court.

The law vested ownership in the crown, but provides for iwi to be granted customary rights and negotiate compensation if those rights are considered to amount to customary title. Mr Key said last week that the discussion document was the result of considerable compromise on both sides, but bottom lines for National included included universal access. “There has been a lot of compromise to get to where we are.  I don’t think people will notice a lot of change.”

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Taxpayers putting up $200,000 for Maori rugby’s celebration

Posted by karere under Maori News

The Ministry of Maori Development is putting up $200,000 of taxpayers’ money to help pay for the Rugby Union’s centenary celebration of Maori rugby. The ministry, Te Puni Kokiri (TPK), said final contracts with the union were still being finalised. But it would pay for activities connected with the centenary tour, in which New Zealand Maori will play Ireland and England in June.

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Maori Party to contest council election

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Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples has confirmed the party will stand candidates in the first election for an Auckland super city council. Auckland mayor John Banks has encouraged the party to get involved, saying it has people capable of serving on the new body. Dr Sharples says it will be tough to get a Maori elected, but the effort must be made. “Obviously we’re going to be looking with Maori organisations to put some good people up for that council. There’s no doubt about that. We would still like those guaranteed seats because history shows we don’t make many councils at all,” Dr Sharples says.

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Maori, Pacific relics sent from US for sale

Posted by karere under Maori News

Hundreds of Maori and Pacific artefacts housed in a modest Ohio museum since the 1970s have arrived in Auckland to be auctioned closer to home. Most of the 300 to 400 items - half of which were collected by a United States foreign aid worker active in the Pacific for several decades from the 1930s - remain in a half-tonne shipment of boxes awaiting customs and biosecurity clearance at Auckland Airport. But auction house Webb’s has received and unpacked one carton containing such items as a giant 40cm adze, believed by managing director Neil Campbell to be more than 700 years old, as well as an unusually long taiaha and a rare yellow pounamu pendant.

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$97m aquaculture deal speedily resolved

Posted by karere under Maori News

Legislation passed yesterday gave effect to a $97 million aquaculture settlement for South Island and Coromandel iwi which one of the key negotiators said should serve as a model for other negotiations. The Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Bill passed yesterday gives effect to a deed of settlement between the Crown and 10 iwi signed in May last year covering all the Crown’s obligations for aquaculture space approved between 1992 and 2004 under the previous marine farming regime. The original deal gave iwi 20 per cent of all marine farming space created during that period - or “pre-commencement” space as it was known - and guaranteed Maori 20 per cent of any new space created after 2004.

However, that proved unworkable. “The original settlement was based on Maori getting a share of new aquaculture space to make up for that which they had not acquired historically, but the process for providing this space failed,” acting Fisheries Minister Nick Smith said yesterday. “This cash settlement has been used to resolve this issue.”

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‘Iwi’ eye minerals for Treaty talks

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Coromandel Peninsula iwi want to put the rights to mineral wealth on the table as they head into Treaty negotiations and the Government talks about mining on conservation land. Marutuahu confederation spokesman Paul Majurey said although members hadn’t formally discussed the issue the group had indicated last year that access to mineral wealth and the Department of Conservation estate were two “big ticket” items on its agenda. That position hadn’t changed. But getting the Government to agree to discuss the issue is a long shot as the Crown says minerals belong to it. “We’re going into negotiation and this is one of the things that is clearly on our radar,” Mr Majurey said. The Crown’s proposal was timely as it would influence how the group approached settlement “and that part of our settlement involving DoC lands, schedule four [land] and ownership of minerals”.

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UN backs Wakatu Inc as claimant

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The United Nations has supported a bid by the Nelson-based Wakatu Incorporation to have the Government recognise it as a legitimate treaty claimant, chief executive Keith Palmer says. Mr Palmer said “whanau” in New York had taken the case to the UN after the Government avoided negotiations with the Wakatu Incorporation because it was not a hapu or iwi. “They [the UN] say we’ve got a valid case that the Government should hear. We will present it to the Government and ask for their formal response.”

Wakatu Incorporation is acting on behalf of the Wai 56 claimants seeking redress for the mismanagement of lost land by government agencies since the 1940s. Mr Palmer said hearings were held six years ago and they had been fighting for two years against their claim being lumped in with the impending top of the south iwi settlement. “Iwi should have what’s rightfully theirs. What we don’t want to do is hold up the iwi settlement.”

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Mining hypocrisy slammed by hapu

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Ngati Rehua says it’s hypocritical that the Government wants to re-establish mining on Great Barrier when they’ve only talked to the tribe about conservation values during Treaty negotiations. The chairman of the hapu’s trust, Rawiri Wharemate, said the tribe is annoyed the Crown has pushed a case for maintaining the Department of Conservation estate, but now want to remove Schedule Four conservation protection from the 705ha Te Ahumata Plateau to exploit potential gold and silver deposits. “You bargain in good faith. They’ve not spoken once about mining. What they have spoken about is DoC’s principles of conservation - so it’s very contradictory to hear from [Energy and Resources minister] Gerry Brownlee they want to open it up for blinking mining.”

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Lady Raiha Mahuta dies, aged 67

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Waikato River co-negotiator and respected Tainui figure Lady Raiha Mahuta has died. Lady Raiha, who had been ill with cancer and suffered a heart attack last year, passed away early this morning aged 67. Lady Raiha and Tukuroirangi Morgan, who leads Tainui’s executive board Te Arataura, negotiated with the Crown on behalf of Waikato-Tainui in 2008 signing a settlement deed with the Labour government which guaranteed it a $210 million fund to clean up the polluted Waikato River, and a river co-management deal between itself and the Crown. Mr Morgan said through a spokeswoman that Lady Raiha was to have attended today’s Joint Management Agreement signing with The Waikato District Council at Ngaruawahia.

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