Mike Butler: HB paper pushes coastal claims

The Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper announced support for tribal claims for the marine and coastal area in a Waitangi Day editorial and labelled those who question the legislation and claims as “unhelpfully emotive and mischievous in the context of the ground on which we stand today”.

While editorial writer Doug Laing has every right to express his opinion in our free society, and the H.B. Today has every right to editorialise in any direction it chooses, those efforts should engage in the debate rather than labelling the criticism as “antics” and describing public meetings as “staged”.