Worth Richard: General Debates 
Worth Richard: General Debates 
[Volume:610;Page:7451] 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: 
 I have viewed the debate about Maori claims to the foreshore and the seabed with increasing unease in the last few weeks. I suggest to members opposite that the position worsens as the Government dithers and the expectations of many in Maoridom rise. Since 19 June 2003 which is not very long ago some 16 applications have been lodged with the registries of the Maori Land Court for hundreds of thousands of hectares of foreshore and seabed. The position has been worsened by blurred language from Government Ministers. 
David Benson-Pope 
: Have they been granted? 
RICHARD WORTH 
: No not yet. The initial position of the Government was correct. It initially made an unequivocal statement that the foreshore and the seabed were the exclusive property of the Crown. The language then became confused. The phrases “Maori customary title to land” and “customary rights” were used interchangeably but they are utterly different concepts. The Government perpetuated that error in question time today in confusing those two concepts. John Tamihere suggested that the Crown has already alienated the foreshore in many parts of New Zealand and he used the ownership of Great Mercury Island in the Hauraki Gulf as an example when he appeared on a television programme. He confused the clear concept of riparian rights with ownership of the foreshore. Others have compounded that confusion. 
Riparian rights run to mean high-water mark. Land carrying such rights is owned by Maori and non-Maori alike. Those rights that are clear title should not be expropriated—they are outside the scope of this debate. The foreshore is a different area of land. It is that part of the beach that is covered and uncovered by tidal flow. It starts at mean high-water spring tide and it runs to mean low-water neap tide. From there the foreshore becomes the seabed running out to the continental shelf. I suggest that unless the Government moves to deal in a clear and unequivocal way in respect of the claims relating to the foreshore and the seabed it will create a legacy that will bedevil New Zealand. 
 The issues are not difficult to resolve. The Maori Land Court should have no jurisdiction to determine the status of foreshore and seabed and related waters. It is a court concerned with land whose jurisdiction should stop at the mean high-water mark. It is wrong to allow the pending applications in the Maori Land Court to be advanced because the danger is that property rights will be created that may then have to be expropriated. That is hardly a satisfactory circumstance. 
Then I suggest it is important that Maori customary rights in respect of the foreshore and the seabed be maintained. Those rights can be recognised in two ways—first by the Government accepting recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal and second by direct Government negotiation with relevant Maori interests. What are those customary rights? They are clearly limited in character. They are founded on active use but they may embrace rights of access rights to take stone or sand or other matters. In my view they do not include rights in respect of marine farming. Those rights were taken away by the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act of 1992. That statute and the associated deed of settlement resolved Maori claims in respect of commercial fishing. I would say that that position is clear from reading the legislation and noting its relationship with the Fisheries Act of 1996.