Foreshore & Seabed - I realise this post is meaningless to most on this forum...

Posted by: Deane F on 22 November 2004

I want to register in a public forum my shame and disappointment in my government's ramming through the House of The Foreshore and Seabed Bill.

Even the most cursory investigation into the circumstances that gave rise to the drafting of the Bill would reveal a racist, rapacious and vacuously populist response to a judgment of the Court of Appeal on a minor question sent up from the lower courts.

The legislation is aimed at removing from a very particular minority of the population access to due process through the courts. It has been drafted and forced through the House under urgency to close down the possibility that the Courts might have found for the applicants. Were the Courts to have found for the applicants their decision would only and unavoidably have added to a corpus of law surrounding aboriginal title that has been built up over centuries.

The Crown's mandate is founded upon honour and trust, and it's failure, in respect of The Foreshore and Seabed Bill, to exercise it's mandate according to these noble principles "can be reprehended by the plainest understanding".

Deane
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Top Cat
Deane,

Forgive my ignorance in this - can you elaborate as to what this bill proposes? I'm guessing that it has impact on coastal areas, and as I live and sail on one, I'm interested to hear more about this.

Edit: Just realised that this is isn't something in the UK so doesn't directly concern me, but as I'm interested anyway, please tell us more...

John
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Stephen Bennett
Does this remove the Queens ownership of the water and seabed just offshore?

If so, I'm for it! Maybe she does in NZ too?


Cool

Stephen

(Not looking forward to the Foreskin and Seagull bill.......)
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by seagull
quote:
Not looking forward to the Foreskin and Seagull bill.......)



nor me Big Grin
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Deane F
quote:
Originally posted by Top Cat:
Deane,

Forgive my ignorance in this - can you elaborate as to what this bill proposes? I'm guessing that it has impact on coastal areas, and as I live and sail on one, I'm interested to hear more about this.

Edit: Just realised that this is isn't something in the UK so doesn't directly concern me, but as I'm interested anyway, please tell us more...

John


John

To elaborate would take pages I'm afraid. There is such a lot of history, and so many agenda involved, that it would be an impossible issue to summarise without unfair generalisation.

The context is the colonisation of New Zealand by the British Empire. Central to the controversy are questions of the status of terra nulius of the land before colonisation, ie: whether New Zealand was empty of people for the purposes of occupation, or whther the indigenous people who occupied the land before colonisation were sufficiently organised to be treated with by the coloniser.

International Law has had a lot to say about colonisation through the centuries and this particular body of common law could generally be said to favour the European Nation States (Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Britain...) who did all the colonising.

My observation is that, with the foreshore and seabed issue the common law (read this to mean the Courts) was appearing to head in a direction which might favour indigenous (Maori) interests. There is a lot of feeling/prejudice against Maori interests present in the electorate and The Foreshore and Seabed Bill has pandered to this feeling for the sake of votes.

There is no conservation element in the Bill. It relates purely to title.

Deane
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Stevea
I agree. Doesn't make you proud to be a New Zealander.

Steve