The Takutai Moana Act amendment and why it’s racist colonial evil

This is part 3. Not sure how many parts it will have either, or exactly how it turns out, but this is the third time round the mulberry bush on the forecoast takumarine legislation – the Nat-Act-NZF coalition amendment Bill to the current Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011, itself a replacement to the original Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004. The select committee reported back and the government announced last weekend that they want it passed by October.

Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill

The Wet Bit Part III. And spoiler alert: part three is a lot like part one – only cuntier.

I am no ingénue to the contest between the clamouring, rapacious white settlers and the target native victims as the reader may be aware from my previous posts on The Daily Blog.  I have a MACA application on behalf of my Hapu to a protected customary right and also a customary marine title application on behalf of the Hapu owners of a coastal block in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. That is my interest statement. I dutifully participated in the submissions process to the Ministerial report as part of initial consultation before the FSA legislation came about, I dutifully participated in the submissions process for the FSA legislation, I dutifully participated in the sedition process when the FSA legislation was passed, I dutifully participated in the submissions process for the MACA, I dutifully split with Te Ururoa over his backing of it and then dutifully joined with Hone Harawira in his opposition of it. So, allow me as a participant with extensive background in the legislative process on this matter to precis my views: The FSA 2004 was a cunt, the MACA was slightly less cunty (but still cunty), and now this turd-awful cunt-box of clowns has shat out the massive mother queen of all cunts. This is my professional opinion of course – my personal views are much stronger.

It’s like a law being able to horse whip a black man in the street.  That is the equivalent in racial terms of what this law would do. Maybe that’s why former Attorney-General and lead minister of the MACA legislation, Christopher Finlayson has condemned it vociferously. RNZ quoting him:

“These amendments do not restore the original intention of Parliament. They undermine them. Let there be no doubt about that at all […] What they are doing by these foolish amendments is destroying the settlement that the National Party and the Māori Party reached in 2010. […] Tangata whenua have a few wins in court, and it’s ripped away from them by the government, which changes goal posts 15 years later. I am very, very saddened by what they have done, and I think it’s a very bad day for race relations in New Zealand. I just can’t believe that they’re as foolish as they appear to be.”

Even hate-mongering old Dr Duran Duran of the United Future party can’t see the point in upending the playing board just because you’re losing the game. RNZ quoting Peter Dunne:

“It seems to me that that’s almost a way of saying ‘we want to make it tougher than was originally intended’ and I don’t think that’s correct or justifiable.[…] It was set out to be relatively high for quite a specific purpose; to make sure that the claims that were being made were genuine and well founded and not frivolous or opportunistic… it was generally accepted there needed to be a high bar.”

This was the first time I had not submitted on takutai moana legislation. Most of the 6,000+ submissions would have been against, naturally. When is enough enough? How many times do we have to do this? The white government forgot to steal it so they’ve got a Bill to take it. The white judges were too liberal in the pittance they gave. And they want submissions on this. And then they’re just going to ram it through and take it anyway. And, if they messed that up and a little bit remained unstolen that they find later, or some judge was unexpectedly fair in a case – they will prepare another Bill to steal that too. On it goes. Go back through the Acts of the 19^th century parliaments and the abominations are commonplace. The only difference is the stunt they are trying to pull is on an epic scale and it is 2025.

The scale is why they are fighting so hard – the coastal area of the whole country and one of the largest coastlines in the world. And these three parties of the government are fighting for Pakeha commercial interests.  Whenever they invoke the public they are essentially lying. It is a smaller subset – white private enterprise – that they are enabling; this is the underlying fact. The white private enterprise cannot obtain that Maori land and displace Maori interests and override Maori usages without using the government to do it. They couldn’t use the law to do it so they get the government to change the law. The sacred rule of law. Sacred to – and more importantly for – the white settler community.  The rule of law is just arbitrary repression imposed on the natives – it has no credibility. Would the MACA Act ever be amended to assist Maori and bar Pakeha rights, you know, if it was reversed? Reverse those resource consents the Act lets them keep. It would never happen would it. Pakeha get all their things grandfathered over and Maori get everything retrospectively terminated because New Zealand is still, very evidently, a colony. Walks like a colony, quacks like a colony, confiscates like a colony.

The submission fatigue doesn’t apply to those who are being paid – the lawyers (on all sides), the government officials, the private enterprises – all that keeps merrily rolling along – but it does apply  to me! What the hell is the point? It is so damn ugly. My submission would have contained just basic notes because the logic is ghastly.

Those seemingly anodyne words are unjust racism every bit as much as those anodyne words were in any Apartheid law in South Africa ever was. It makes me angry and it makes me greatly contemptable towards the fools (to use Dunne’s word) who have agreed to it. For example the original offence against the Treaty in the FSA 2004 was “the test” and that it was what I described as “the white man’s touch” – arguably any record of a non-Maori so much as walking across a beach was the start of native title extinguishment. The MACA 2011 got rid of mere touch so it had to be more of an interruption than only navigation or fishing. Now this amendment takes it right back to 2004 and it might as well be 1864. That test is a racist as the pencil test for coloured kids under Apartheid.

Check out the ghastliness of what counts as “extinguished as a matter of law” – everything. Everything and it’s soft and vague. Anything vested under “the common law” and “administrative action” for example. And “an interest has been established before, on, or after 17 January 2005 that is legally inconsistent with exclusive use and occupation of the area by the applicant group.” Established how? Established by common law and administrative action? The gate is open wide for the white settlers and is closed to the natives. Maori can be prejudiced by just about anything done by a white person and never the other way around. The officials look to have literally just thought up everything they could possibly think of that could be used as weapons against Maori and then used them. Granting Pakeha freedom of action to start the appropriation process is a time honoured colonial gambit.

I see that Labour strongly opposes the Bill – from their minority report as below:

• the Government’s dismissal and lack of meaningful consideration for official advice
• the failure to consult with Māori during the development of this bill
• consulting with the fishing industry before any discussion with Māori
• the lack of any meaningful evidence and rationale as to why the bill is needed
• political expediency overriding judicial rulings that have been ruled in favour of Māori
• adding a retrospective mechanism meaning that applicants will have to be reheard, burdening them with additional emotional and financial costs
• changing the legislation before the matter could be heard in the Supreme Court
• breaching the Treaty principles—namely, participation, partnership, and protection
• the Minister contravened the National Party constitution 4(b) which includes the recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi as the country’s founding document as part of a values base that seeks to create opportunities for all New Zealanders to reach their personal goals and dreams
• endangering the Māori Crown relationship.

It is the view of Labour that the Government should immediately stop the progression of this bill. As it stands, this bill represents a significant breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles. It undermines the rule of law and destabilises the relationship between Māori and the Crown.

The Greens similarly opposed:

The Green Party do not support these amendments as we see the current framework as one that many hapū and iwi have spent time and energy understanding and participating in. However, we also recognise that some submitters advocated for fundamental changes to this framework. The Green Party did not support the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 or the principal Act, the Marine and Coastal Area Act. As the Green Party noted in the differing view on the latter in 2011: “This bill extinguishes customary rights by operation of law, without the consent of the customary owners. This constitutes a confiscation.” Therefore, we believe there is a need for a fundamental shift in how Māori customary interests in the coastal marine area are recognised and upheld, and that this bill goes in the opposite direction.

Te Pati Maori are certainly opposed, but it seems from the select committee report (that lists Takuta Ferris as a member of that committee) that TPM has no minority report. I’m fatigued, but even I’m writing this blog ffs dude! Are they serious or what?