Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party have called on the government to abandon its planned Marine and Coastal Area Act changes after the Waitangi Tribunal found it was committing gross breaches of the Treaty.
Te Pāti Māori emphasised that the report said the amendment was a “gross breach of the Treaty” and an “illegitimate exercise of kāwanatanga”.
“Tangata whenua rights are the last barrier to this government’s agenda to pillage, extract, and sell off Aotearoa to the highest bidder,” co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said.
“The largest confiscation of Māori land in history happened in 2004 with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This was the genesis of our Party,” Tco-leader Rawiri Waititi said.
“This government is hellbent on taking us back 20 years and entrenching the theft of our moana and coastlines. They better be prepared for what comes next because te iwi Māori will not stand for a repeat of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.”
Waititi said the Takutai Moana Act only gave Māori the recognition of limited rights.
“Customary marine title doesn’t come close to the ownership promised by Te Tiriti o Waitangi,” Waititi said.
“This government is throwing relations between Māori and the Crown into deeper disharmony,” the Green Party’s spokesperson for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Steve Abel, said.
Abel said Māori rights to their customary waters were at the core of what Te Tiriti guaranteed and urged the need to uphold and honour the founding agreement of the nation.
“The government is trampling all over Te Tiriti by attacking te iwi Māori customary rights to the marine and coastal area. We must call this what it is - an act of raupatu,” Abel said.
“The Green Party will stand alongside te iwi Māori and against the government’s confiscation of their customary rights to the marine and coastal environment.”
