[Volume:624;Page:19249] 
But the Government choose to override the rule of law discriminate against Maori and ignore thousands of New Zealanders. Even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recognised the foreshore law as discriminating against Maori because it removed the right of Maori to go to court to have their legal rights clarified and took potential property with no guarantee of compensation. The law is an international disgrace and is deeply embarrassing to this country especially to a Prime Minister who prides herself on her international reputation. Yet the Government pursued that law. 
Why did it do that? It was because with the last constitutional restraint gone all regimes relating to the marine environment are now fully within legislation and completely under the Government’s control. New Zealanders are effectively cut out of the picture. Maori clearly identified that serious risk and thousands of Pakeha agreed with them but they were all ignored and fierce exploitation of the marine area is now under way. Legal ownership of the seabed is now in the hands of the Government. 
The Government has altered the tax regime to remove barriers to offshore exploration companies making the exploitation of those resources more economically attractive to foreign-owned companies. The Resource Management Act amendments currently before the House include firstly the explicit removal of any duty to consult in the resource consent process so that local communities and environmental organisations will not be heard on potentially devastating environmental impacts and secondly an extension of the Minister’s powers to call in projects—a further and greater erosion of the principle of community consultation in resource management. Also before the House at the moment is an amendment to the Overseas Investment Act which will loosen the criteria for obtaining Overseas Investment Commission approval and perhaps even go so far as to not require a foreign-owned offshore exploration company to obtain Overseas Investment Commission approval before it begins mining New Zealand’s seabed. 
Looking at the full Government legislation programme we see that the Government clearly wants to enable greater mineral and resource exploitation of our marine environment with nothing more than the most superficial consideration of Maori views the total exclusion of local communities and the most minor mitigation of the devastating ecological impacts. The Green Party holds environmental sustainability and protection as a fundamental principle. We want controls on the Overseas Investment Commission tightened in order to keep New Zealand land in New Zealand hands and not loosened to enable foreign countries to buy up our country. We consistently argue for greater community consultation and decision making. We believe that Maori customary ownership would have protected our natural resources not eroded them. 
The Greens fought against the Foreshore and Seabed Act because we also predicted the risk the Act would pose. Maori customary ownership was actually our last defence. The constitutional te tiriti protections that were successfully used in the 1980s to protect our forests fisheries and land have now been legislated away through ignorance and arrogance. Those who argued in favour of the Foreshore and Seabed Act are now seeing the disastrous results of their mistake. Those who enacted it—the Labour Government and New Zealand First—will very soon be held to account by the people of this country.