National swipes at foreshore act

National would change the foreshore law to prevent the Maori Land Court hearing customary rights cases and investigate axing the court altogether, says deputy leader Gerry Brownlee.

The party also appears set to sideline several Government agencies managing the coastal marine area, giving the job to a newly created body instead.

The party advocated Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed during the legislative debate, but supported recognition of coastal customary usage rights. The Government's legislation did those things, but National opposed it on points of detail.

It has revisited the issue now that the first customary rights claim has been lodged by a Whakatohea group in the land court. The Foreshore and Seabed Act directs groups with the more substantial claims - that they would have been awarded some form of title but for the law - to the High Court or into direct negotiation with the Crown.

The claim was filed by lawyer Tim Castle, a specialist adviser to the parliamentary select committee which inquired into the legislation and an expert on it.

While he won't release the statement of claim, it asserts the use rights confer rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga - or vice versa - over a strip of the East Coast.

Crown lawyers saw it as a bid for governance rights, designed to challenge the intent of the legislation. The Land Court's decision to hear the claim was perceived as endorsing the challenge.

Mr Brownlee and fellow MP Wayne Mapp criticised the act at a party conference over the weekend, pledging National would "ensure Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore".

Mr Brownlee said afterwards this meant the ownership provisions needed strengthening. Mr Mapp said the party would prevent the Land Court hearing claims.

Maori had also criticised its paternalism when it came to land retention issues at the Hui Taumata, Mr Brownlee said.

He said later that the Land Court was there to consider disputes over Maori land, but was not the right jurisdiction for foreshore claims in which "it is not only Maori who have an interest".

Following concerns raised around the Hui Taumata "we would investigate the prospect of the Maori Land Court disappearing altogether".

He said there needed to be a new, more community-based approach to coastal management, in which all New Zealanders' interests were valued.

The coast was now administered by at least four different agencies, he said.