Winston Peters - Seabed claims based on fallacy benefit no one

It started out in innocence, as things sometimes do, but this week an eight-year-old issue has gone from one extreme to the other.
Back in 2003 the then Marlborough Sounds iwi took a case to the Maori Land Court. Their dispute arose from the Marlborough District Council failing to involve or consult them in the allocation of areas for commercial aquaculture in the Sounds. Preceding their complaint was an unholy grab for commercial aquaculture, where local Maori never got a look in.
That was the first extreme which led local Maori to seek a decision from the Maori Land Court to give them customary title to the foreshore and seabed of the whole of the Marlborough Sounds.
The foreshore goes from the mean high-water springs, or spring high tide, to the mean low-water springs, or spring low tide. Beyond that is the seabed, which extends to the limit of the territorial sea or 12 nautical miles from the spring low-tide mark. And beyond that, an area now in contention as well, is New Zealand's exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles.
Ours is the fourth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, which came to us under the 1982 Unclos definition for all maritime nations. It means that New Zealand can claim areas inside 370km from the mean low-water mark. It's not complicated and Kiwis need to know what we are dealing with here.
Opponents of the Maori case argued that customary title had been lost. The Maori Land Court found that was not certain.
The case preceded to the High Court where the Maori argument failed. They appealed to the Court of Appeal and the rest is history.
The Court of Appeal decided the case should be sent back to the Maori Land Court, which it said had jurisdiction to decide the status of the foreshore and seabed and whether Maori had rights to customary title.
The Appeal Court also said, however, that they found it difficult to conceive how such a case could succeed.
In response the then Labour government consulted with NZ First, then in opposition, and were advised that unless their bill was changed to reassert Crown ownership, eliminate customary title and replace it with customary rights then NZ First would not support it. Labour's bill was changed and the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act came in to being.
National opposed the act, arguing it was giving away public property, and launched their billboard campaign: "National - Kiwi; Labour - Iwi."
The United Party wanted the foreshore and seabed to be owned by no one and the Act Party wanted to remove Crown ownership and have the courts decide.
The Green Party went with the Maori claim. This week, the Foreshore and Seabed Act was repealed and in its place the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill was passed.
On Tuesday, there was a Maori protest at Parliament of about 300, down from the 20,000 who had protested over the earlier legislation.
Why the massive drop in protest numbers? Answer: the protesters had achieved what they wanted but they had done so on the back of a massive misrepresentation - that the 2004 legislation was a massive land grab and alienation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
One: Most of the protesters never had any rights on this issue before or after European settlement because their people never belonged on the coast.
Two: Maori before or after 1840 never saw the sea as land. Nor did any indigenous people anywhere in the world. How could they? For such a conclusion defies intellectual, cultural and spiritual gravity, let alone the physical impossibility of occupying the sea.
Three: The foreshore and seabed is now owned by no one and yet Maori can apply for customary title.
Four: The Maori Party and others elevated their position to argue that Maori had a right to their day in court, except under this law they won't be going to court but can negotiate an outcome directly with the government.
Five: Customary title can now be granted and those who believe that such a title will not in time be capable of transfer to others are simply deluding themselves.
Six: In effect, 197 nautical miles of seabed and foreshore, which came to us all by international treaty, is now up for a "Maverick solution". Maverick was the Wild West rancher who argued for all ranchers to brand their cattle separately, that those cattle without a brand would be his.
If no one owns it then that void will soon be filled, which is precisely what the current Government's law will allow.
Seven: Just to show how perverse this is, during these sham negotiations and consultations the port authorities have sneaked in their own alterations to the law. Now they have rights that no government had given them.
Eight: The average Maori in whose name this vacuous law change has been argued will get no benefit. As usual, the benefits will go to the Treaty industry, lawyers, consultants and the like.
Back in 2004 the National Party accused us of a sell-out to Maori. That was blatantly dishonest.
The 2004 legislation saw New Zealand as being one nation while allowing customary rights where they obviously existed in the case of Maori.
National argues that public access will still be guaranteed. Provisions within the current act, such as for wahi tapu (sacred areas), make that claim an absurdity. The lakes and rivers are next.
As the Greek tragic dramatist Euripides wrote: "Those who the Gods would destroy they first make mad."