New Zealand passes law to nationalise coastline
New Zealand's parliament passed a law yesterday making its coastline public property - a move protested vigorously by indigenous Maori who claim a 160-year-old treaty puts much of the coast under their control.
Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen told parliament the law was about the government "asserting clear ownership" of the 18,700km coastal strip on behalf of all New Zealanders.
"There will be disappointment among Maori at the passing of this bill," but they "do not own the foreshore and seabed", Cullen told MPs.
The government says the legislation protects public access to beaches, while granting Maori "customary use" of their ancestral areas on the coast, such as fishing and gathering shellfish.
The law nationalising New Zealand's coastline passed in a 66 to 53 vote, after 18 months of anger vented by opponents who say the move steals land from the Maori. In May, more than 20,000 protesters marched to parliament to denounce the legislation.
Maori say the law contravenes the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which made the indigenous people into citizens under British rule, and guaranteed their rights to their lands, forests, fisheries, culture and language.
Maori, who make up 530,000 of New Zealand's four million people, are among the poorest, least healthy, worst educated and poorest housed. They also suffer high unemployment.
Some tribes say the new law will block their plans to set up lucrative fish-farming ventures along parts of New Zealand's coast.
However, Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia, an indigenous Maori, said the law "is about protecting Maori rights... while preventing the alienation of the foreshore".
Protesters, meanwhile, smashed a window at Prime Minister Helen Clark's home district office with an axe early yesterday in Auckland, apparently venting anger at the new law.
Police Inspector Helen Wilson said a letter found near the shards of glass stated the action "symbolised broken faith, broken trust and shattered justice".
The message said the vandalism was taken by New Zealanders of European descent known as "pakeha" who are angry at the "injustice to Maori" in the law.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Helen Clark called the incident "violent criminal behaviour and there is no place for it in a democracy".