Winston: Foreshore plan won't work

Putting the foreshore and seabed into public domain will cause conflict, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says.

Mr Peters' party had backed Labour's foreshore and seabed legislation, which put the areas in Crown ownership, arguing the move guaranteed Maori customary rights.

The National government opposed the law and ordered a ministerial review which found that the Foreshore and Seabed Act was unfair because it removed property rights available to Maori.

Last week the Government said its preferred option to replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act was to declare it a public domain, which no one can own, while reasserting the right of Maori to seek customary but not freehold title through the courts.

Attorney General Chris Finlayson said the proposal would restore customary titles for coastal areas and allow Maori to claim them in courts.

The definition of what sort of property rights such title would bring and what would be needed to qualify for them will probably be the focus of the month-long consultation process underway.

Mr Peters told TVNZ's Q+A programme this morning that several iwi had already negotiated settlements regarding customary rights with the Crown under the previous law.

"To open up this again you are going to see decades of internecine strife between Maori and European and Maori and Maori until some wise government resolves it again... We've gone from legal certainty to total uncertainty. We've gone from a solution to a potential train wreck."

Mr Peters said Maori had been deceived and thought they could get ownership under the new proposal but they could not.

"Either the Europeans or non-Maori have been lied to or the Maori are [being lied to]."

The previous government enacted the Foreshore and Seabed Act following a 2003 Court of Appeal ruling in the Ngati Apa case that raised the possibility, in some narrow instances, for Maori customary title to convert into freehold title.

That had the potential to put parts of the coastline under Maori control, and Labour legislated against it.

Widespread Maori opposition followed, and Tariana Turia quit Labour to form the Maori Party.

- NZPA