(TAKUTAI MOANA) BILL E kau I te wai e, e kau I te wa

Detailed TRW Comments on the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai
Moana) Bill.
3.1 Discriminatory Form of Title
3.1. The new form of customary title proposed by the Bill fails to recognise
and provide for the mana and authority that our hapū and iwi have
exercised in relation to our takutai Moana from time immemorial, and
that was protected by Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
3.2 The Waitangi Tribunal has reported that the harbour and its foreshores
were and remain crucial aspects of Tauranga Moana iwi and hapū
economic, cultural and spiritual well-being and identity. Tauranga Moana
was and is, clearly and indisputably, a taonga of all of the hapū of
Tauranga Moana, including Ngā hapū o Ngāti Ranginui. The Tribunal
went further to find that in usurping ownership over Tauranga Moana the
Crown committed a number of Treaty breaches. 4
TRW submits that this
usurpation is continued by the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana)
Bill.
3.3 The Bill constructs a space termed the common marine and coastal area
of which no one is capable of owning (clause 11). The Bill then specifically
excludes freehold title located within the foreshore and seabed from
forming part of that common marine and coastal area (clause 7). The Bill
therefore retains privilege to an exclusive group of existing private
owners that have freehold in their land contiguous to the foreshore and
seabed and creates a new form of title for iwi and hapū that is specifically
defined as being less than freehold title (clause 63). The Bill is selective
about what parts of the foreshore are seabed are available under the
new customary marine title and then heavily limits the rights available to
hapū and iwi in clause 64. This new form of title is therefore a
discriminatory form of title that disadvantages TRW in that it is a
subordinate title predicated on a notion of essentially subordinate Māori
rights. TRW therefore urges the select committee to rectify this aspect of
the Bill.
4 Page 608.
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