A letter to Muriel Newman – Coastal Coalition consternation-raising organiser
Dear Muriel
I am writing to thank you for the circular that appeared in my mailbox this weekend warning us about the possible outcomes of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. I wish there were more communications of this sort alerting New Zealanders to important legislation going through and giving us an easy opportunity via your thoughtful hyperlink on your website – wwwcoastalcoalition.co.nz to read the bill.
Thankfully I have had now had that chance and can see that the legislation is about as fair as it could be in restoring the opportunity for Maori to contest (through courts or by negotiation with the Crown) their customary rights to kai moana or other resources (excluding precious minerals). I note that John Key has commented that if the Maori Party is happy but Hone Harawira is not, the bill is probably about right. Perhaps he might have added that if Muriel Newman is not happy, Hone’s view is balanced at the other extreme of the debate.
Contrary to your campaign’s mischievous and misleading race-based slogan on the back of the ute in your website photograph, the bill does not award ownership to anyone except the Crown. What it appears to do is restore the right of Maori to claim customary rights, not title, to take resources from parts of the foreshore or seabed around New Zealand. Note that the Bill says that these rights are not exclusive. Only where there is (Court or Crown determined) wahi tapu is a degree of restricted access allowed (to anybody).
As a New Zealander of English heritage I don’t have a problem with that – it’s what the Treaty of Waitangi provided for.
Further searching the links from your website I note on the NZCPR site today’s posting from Roger Beattie, who I know is a very nice man, (I used to live on Banks Peninsula) but a man who has made a great deal of private money through exploiting the ‘publicly owned’ foreshore and seabed in Akaroa Harbour. Isn’t this exactly what you are spreading fear that some Maori will do? And so what if they do?
Perhaps this is my opportunity to learn the information I have long wondered about and which with your undoubted expertise on this subject you might be able to tell me. Just how much rent per hectare of seabed (or rather seawater – which I note is excluded from the Maori right under the Bill) do the hundreds if not thousands of commercial shellfish and salmon farms around our coasts pay to the local authority? Or how much will they pay to the Crown (or heaven forbid – the local iwi) in the future? I would be very interested to know the answer to that question. In another sphere you may also be able to tell me how much money commercial dairy farmers and other such businesses are paying per cubic metre of our publicly owned water?
Once again, thank you for your mailout. Its sheer offensiveness stirred me to read the bill and I genuinely appreciate that. However I hope your campaign otherwise fails in its bid to fuel the ignorance and fear that many white ‘Kiwis’ already have in abundance and which will only cause further prejudice and hate. I also take offence at that use of the word ‘Kiwi’ in your poster. Since when did that term only apply to non-Maori New Zealanders?
Yours sincerely
Colin Slade
