Maori tribes angrily rejected a government proposal to make the country's 18,700km coastline public property yesterday, and called for a mass march on parliament to protest the move.
Maori, who won a court case on the issue, say their forebears owned the foreshore and seabed before European settlers arrived 163 years ago, and it remains their property.
They said the proposal means the property will be placed in government ownership.
"This is the last land grab they can get their hands on," veteran Maori protester and Maori Council member Titewhai Harawera told National Radio.
"I'm sick and tired of the government trying to legislate to give itself ownership. That ownership belongs with Maori, end of story," she said, calling for a protest march, known as a hikoi, on parliament.
Federation of Maori Authorities executive deputy chairman Paul Morgan said Maori had been stripped of their property for 163 years.
"They are going to change the law to appease 85 percent of the community," he said of the plan, widely seen as protecting the coastline and sea access rights of the majority ethnic European community.
Indigenous Maori total 540,000 of New Zealand's 4 million people. They are among the nation's poorest citizens, with low education and income levels, poor health and housing standards, and high numbers of unemployed.
Maori say they want to establish and run coastal aquaculture ventures like mussel and oyster farms, but that they have been shut out of coastal space by other operators and local regulators.
Not all Maori were angry. Gloria Herbert, chairwoman of the Te Runanga o Te Rarawa tribal council, said she saw a "hopeful sign" in the government saying it did not want legal title to the foreshore and seabed.
If no one owned the foreshore, then management and control became the key issues and Maori should be involved in both, she said.
The Labor-led government's Maori legislators support the proposal but warned that Maori interests are "always compromised in the so-called public interest."
Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere said Maori traditionally had usage rights and the right to pass those on intact, "not to trade it, not to put a commercial value on it and not to talk about money."
New Zealand's longest-serving Labor Maori lawmaker, Dover Samuels, a junior Cabinet minister, supported the proposal. "I think they are visionary and forward looking, rather than arguing about who was here first," he said.
Right-wing political parties want all coastal areas put in government ownership while United Future, a key supporter of the ruling coalition, has not yet committed to supporting the bill.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS