Editorial: An important improvement to seabed bill

File photo / Alan Gibson.

When the Labour Government cancelled Maori access to the courts for claims to foreshore and seabed it substituted a right to negotiate with governments for a nominal recognition of customary ownership.

When National and the Maori Party agreed on a bill to restore access to the courts the bill retained the option of ministerial deals. This week the bill returned from a select committee and the Government announced an important improvement.

Any customary marine title negotiated with a government will have to be endorsed by Parliament. If that proves to be a formality when governments have a comfortable majority it is nevertheless a valuable check on deals that may be done.

Rights to foreshore and seabed are too important to be awarded in quiet negotiations with a minister of the Crown away from public scrutiny.

Those rights under the Marine and Coastal Area Bill will include ownership of seabed minerals apart from gold, silver and uranium, approval (or not) of activities or developments requiring resource consents in the tidal zone, coastal planning and the protection of sacred sites.

Parliamentary scrutiny of any proposed title will provide an opportunity for other interests to be heard and the public to have its say. That prospect might cause most claimants to seek a court order instead, which would be good. Property issues are better resolved by dispassionate judicial minds.

The select committee has made no significant change to the test that claimants would have to satisfy. Essentially an iwi or hapu would have to have had continuous occupation of adjacent land and use of the marine area since 1840. An exception has been made for land that was confiscated.

The test was originally proposed by the Court of Appeal in its landmark decision. Now the Maori Party is united in believing the test too hard but three of its five MPs are likely to support the bill on balance.

Te Tai Tonga's Rahui Katene hopes for further alterations to the bill and Hone Harawira will oppose it whatever happens, but three Maori votes, with National's and Peter Dunne's, would be enough to pass it.

The only likely addition to the bill in a clause-by-clause vote is the Act Party's provision stating that nobody may be charged for access to areas of customary marine title. The Maori Party finds that stipulation unnecessary and insulting and cannot be expected to vote for it, but Act's five votes would ensure its inclusion.

The bill is obviously on a fast-track now. The Government is plainly worried that the bill could be a victim of dissension in the Maori Party if it is not put through its remaining stages quickly.

For Maori the bill is a vast improvement on Labour's legislation. It restores their right to go to court and offers them the possibility of a non-exclusive property right, not the notional recognition that Labour devised for them.

For non-Maori this bill is also better. It contains more carefully prescribed rights on both sides, subjects claims to the open scrutiny of courts or Parliament and it is fair. It has to be fair to be durable.

Haste now would do no harm. There were predictions the legislation would face a groundswell of public alarm over the summer. Despite the efforts of a few it has not happened. Attorney-General Chris Finlayson had a better holiday than he expected. Now he hears only "a lot of beltway parliamentary noise".

The public at large has had enough of the debate and is ready to see something done. This bill looks reasonable and practical enough to settle coastal claims for good.