The action was organized by the local Maori tribe, Te Rarawa. Earlier that day 300 people attended a ceremony to unveil a pouwhenua (marker pole) beside the beach to symbolize customary Maori ownership. Several hours were set aside for an open forum in the morning followed by a concert in the afternoon.

Last December, the government announced that in 2004 it would introduce new legislation to place ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the hands of the state—what it calls the “public domain”—and thereby extinguish Maori rights to seek or maintain private title. Maori communities currently own 10 percent of the land on New Zealand’s coastline.

Opposition to the Labour Party government’s proposals was also expressed February 5-6 at events commemorating the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Protests included a youthful march of 400 at Waitangi itself, which is a town in the north of the North Island. This treaty between the British Crown and some Maori chiefs is promoted by the ruling class as New Zealand’s founding document. Maori have also long cited the treaty as a legal basis for the assertion of their national rights.

Maori, an oppressed nationality, are the indigenous people of New Zealand, comprising as much as 15 percent of the population.

Opposition leader Donald Brash of the National Party also drew anger for a widely publicized speech he made January 27 calling for an end to what he claimed were laws granting “special privileges” to Maori.

The government has been under fire from Maori groups for its June 2003 overturning of a Court of Appeal decision that would have allowed them to go to court to claim ownership of areas of the foreshore and seabed. Maori tribes in the South Island’s Nelson-Marlborough region and elsewhere have been denied licenses in the growing marine farming industry.

The Court of Appeal decision was a result of their efforts to redress this discrimination.

To justify robbing yet more land, government and opposition politicians alike demagogically claimed that should Maori be granted ownership of the foreshore and seabed, they would deny “ordinary New Zealanders” access to the beaches. Growing tracts of the coastline are in fact becoming private property through investment in private marinas, golf courses, luxury beachfront dwellings, tourist ventures, aquaculture, and the like. Maori in the main have not benefited from this, any more than have other working people.

Under its proposed new legislation, the government will limit customary rights to traditional practices such as the protection of burial sites.

Moana Jackson, an attorney for Maori seeking rights to the foreshore and seabed, pointed out in the February 26 New Zealand Herald that the government plan “removes the ability of Maori to have their rights advocated in court” and would restrict them “to some quaint anthropological practices.” National Party leader Brash has opposed even these concessions.

In a move designed to preempt the government’s legislation, Maori at Potaka Marae on the North Island’s east coast have opened their own aquaculture center without official permits.

This is a region where Maori still control most of the coastline, as depicted in the movie Whale Rider.  
 
 
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