NZCPR Weekly: Warning Shots Over Foreshore and Seabed Claims

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we outline how the Marine and Coastal Area Act is failing New Zealanders and needs to be repealed, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Rex Beer shares his concerns about the lack of clarity in the law and the implications for the High Court claims process, and our poll asks whether you believe the Marine and Coastal Area Act should be repealed and Crown ownership restored through the reinstatement of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

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Fiona Mackenzie: Who are these Maori?

With recent claims of Maori ownership of water, wind and the digital spectrum - combined with the concerning prospect of a new, race-based constitution being developed for our country - I am left pondering: Who are these “Maori”?  Who are these people who want to separate themselves from other New Zealanders while thinking they are entitled to take more than their fair portion of the public pie?

I look around at those I share my life with - in our families, our neighbourhoods, at the shops, in school, at the gym, wherever – and can’t imagine how this separatist policy is supposed to work at street level.