Greens call for Foreshore Act to be scrapped

The marginalisation of the Labour Party continues today with the Greens coming out saying that the hated Foreshore and Seabed Act should be scrapped.

National opposed the bill at the time, saying that it gave too much control to Maori, a lacklustre approach that really should have focussed on property rights. United Future opposed it due to the removal of the public domain concept and ACT opposed it on the grounds of the legislation being retrospective, that it was a denial of property rights (in this case Maori property rights), and that it was an unwarranted incursion by the Crown into areas that were specifically Tikanga Maori. The Greens, took a position similar to that of the Māori protesters, also voted against the bill, saying that it overrode Māori rights and offered no guarantee that the land would not later be sold. Only ACT and the Greens have had a principled approach to this bill. The Maori Party of course was formed because Tariana Turia left Labour because of the bill.

Back then it was supported only by Labour, the Progressives, and New Zealand First.

With Labour thrown from office, Jim Anderton, discreditied and Winston First heaved from the parliament altogether then there is no party left with the will to retain this law.

Given that all of those parties with the exception of the Greens are now in government I tink it is safe to say that the life of the bill can be measured in months not years.

As an aside ,on 18 November 2004, Tim Selwyn put an axe through a window of the electorate office of Helen Clark, an act he described as a protest against Helen Clark's handling of the issue.

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