History is replete with governments all over the world using nationalisation to protect a country’s assets and resources in the public interest.
The UK is currently in the throes of nationalising British Steel in the public interest. Established as a State corporation in 1967, British Steel was sold off in 1988, passing through a number of different owners – Dutch, Indian and Chinese – only to now face closure. With the steel sector vital for construction and infrastructure, the UK Government was worried that the loss of domestic steel production and an increasing reliance on foreign imports would weaken national security.
With threats to major assets and resources recognised as crucial triggers for Governments to introduce legislative safeguards in the public interest, surely it’s time the Coalition took action to protect New Zealand democracy from the insatiable demands of tribal leaders and the corporate empires they now control.
Claims for the ownership of key public assets under the guise of Treaty of Waitangi grievances have been underway for decades. Land, buildings, lakes, rivers, mountains, National Parks, flora and fauna, the foreshore and seabed, freshwater, data, even the electromagnetic spectrum – nothing is safe.
Assisting them in their cause, are our Courts.
While New Zealand’s Court system used to act as a front line of defence in protecting the public interest from tribal attack, nowadays, they are party to a tribal agenda that is undermining our democracy.
This was evident back in 2003, when Chief Justice Sian Elias’ overturning of long-settled law through her activist ruling that customary title might still exist in the foreshore and seabed, resulted in a tsunami of tribal claims for the coast. Worried they represented a serious threat to national security through the potential privatisation of New Zealand’s coastline Prime Minister Helen Clark stepped in and passed the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act, cancelling the claims and nationalising the coastal marine area in the public interest.
The appointment of the former head of the Waitangi Tribal Justice Joe Williams to the Supreme Court in 2019 by Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government super-charged the undermining of the Rule of Law in New Zealand. By incorporating Maori custom or “tikanga” into our common law to ensure Maori interests will always win, he has created a circle of majority influence in favour of Maori supremacy in our highest court.
The capture of the Supreme Court means there is now no longer any legal defence against tribal claims. If Maori lose in the lower courts, all they need to do is appeal until their case arrives at the door of the Supreme Court, where it will most likely receive a favourable hearing.
That’s now the reality in New Zealand. No matter what public interest is at stake, the naked ambition driving tribal leaders in their lust for power and control over New Zealand’s strategic holdings, will end up winning the day even when their claims have no rational foundation.
The stakes are huge.
At the present time the country’s richest tribe, the $2-billion tax-free Ngai Tahu business conglomerate, has just concluded an 8-week court hearing for control of the country’s freshwater. Their case against the Crown is being led by National’s former Attorney General Chris Finlayson, the barrister who acted for them in their 1997 Treaty Settlement.
On the basis that they are unable to exercise the traditional food-gathering rights promised in their Treaty Settlement, they are demanding the authority to determine how freshwater in their area is allocated, used and managed.
If they succeed, tribal control of water would become a stranglehold on business and the country as a whole, leading to lucrative royalties on all water use and priority allocations for Maori.
If Ngai Tahu loses in the High Court, they intend appealing all the way to the Supreme Court, where they will most likely win.
Their success would pave the way for tribal control of freshwater across the whole of New Zealand.
How can it possibly be in the country’s best interest that a resource responsible for life itself, could be allowed to fall under the totalitarian control of tribal leaders?
And the answer is it’s not, with the Crown mounting a vigorous defence, accusing the tribe of attempting to usurp existing laws and Parliamentary sovereignty by “cooking up” the claim as a “legal strategy”, suggesting “the tribe’s motivation was greed”, and dismissing the claim as legally irrelevant.
None of this, however, is likely to stop the Ngai Tahu juggernaut’s drive to victory in the Supreme Court.
If that occurs, the only thing that would stand in their way is Parliament – but only if the Coalition steps up and legislates to ensure that freshwater cannot fall under the control of self-interested private groups.
This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator former journalist and author Mike Butler has been analysing the Coalition’s proposed Treaty-related reforms and believes they don’t go nearly far enough:
“Proposed Treaty of Waitangi-related work by the Coalition Government includes:
- a review of treaty clauses in 28 laws
- a law change ‘to refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of the Waitangi Tribunal’s inquiries back to the original intent of the Treaty of Waitangi Act’
- decisions on where to next for the Marine and Coastal Area Act after a 2024 Supreme Court decision to ease concerns about a tribal takeover of the entire coast.”
On the review of Treaty clauses, Mike concludes “little is likely to change”, and with regards to the Waitangi Tribunal, he says: “The best sort of review is to abolish it… The Waitangi Tribunal has long passed its use-by date if in fact it ever had a justifiable purpose.”
When it comes to dealing with the tribal takeover of the coast, he suggests, “The best review of the Marine and Coastal Area Act is repeal and replacement with a simple Act that affirms common law under which all the people of New Zealand own the foreshore, seabed, and riverbeds.”
We couldn’t agree more.
The reality New Zealanders face is that the full-scale attempt by tribal groups to seize control of the country’s coastline through the Courts will succeed if the ‘captured’ Supreme Court remains the final arbiter.
This unconscionable state of affairs represents a complete betrayal of the New Zealand public.
Back in 2011, National’s then Attorney General Chris Finlayson promised New Zealanders that his Marine and Coastal Area Act law change would result in only a minority of remote areas of the coast being transferred to Maori.
But his inclusion of “tikanga” in that law, combined with the activism of the Courts, has resulted in the situation we are now in, where the entire coastline of New Zealand is likely to pass into tribal control.
Once it became clear that the Courts were finding in favour of virtually all tribal claims, instead of a select few, the Coalition stepped in to strengthen the Marine and Coastal Area Act so it would deliver what Parliament intended. They wanted their Amendment Bill passed by Christmas.
But the Supreme Court had other ideas. Their political activism was exposed for all to see, when Justice Joe Williams and his colleagues rushed out a partial judgement designed to stop the law change going ahead. By declaring that “tikanga” should over-ride all other considerations in determining claims under the Marine and Coastal Area Act, they effectively guaranteed tribal control of the coast.
Instead of quashing the Supreme Court’s foolhardy ruling and passing their Amendment Bill as planned, the Coalition put a halt to their law change while they sought advice from Crown Law.
Four months have now passed and the fact that there have been no new developments leads to the conclusion that the Supreme Court has been successful in derailing Parliament’s attempt to raise the bar on Customary Marine Title claims.
As a result of the delay, another six Customary Marine Titles have now been awarded, and with hundreds more claims in the pipeline, the wholesale transfer of the coast to Maori is once again underway.
At this time of major geopolitical unrest, it is intolerable that the Coalition is allowing the Courts to pass control of the coast to Maori.
With Chinese warships patrolling our waters control of the foreshore and seabed has become a national security issue – as an analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies explains:
“China’s recent live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea and the appearance of People’s Liberation Army Navy ships 150 nautical miles east of Sydney in February 2025 have highlighted Beijing’s military interests in the Pacific.
“It’s Memorandum of Understanding with Cook Islands – and its deepening relationships with Pacific Islands states more broadly – could enable China to expand its regional military presence in the future, with military and strategic consequences for regional countries and their partners and allies.
“Beijing at times obfuscates the military interests behind its international activities. For example, its contributions to global anti-piracy efforts off the Horn of Africa beginning in 2008 gradually led to submarine deployments to the Indian Ocean and the opening of an overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017. And in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, China has established a presence through its oceanographic research fleet – with dual-use implications.
“Some states in the region are therefore concerned that Chinese economic activity in the South Pacific related to deep-sea mining could be used to further its strategic and military ambitions. For example, China could make use of its access to the seabed around Cook Islands to conduct hydrography missions, which are important to military undersea operations, such as anti-submarine operations. This potential new element of China’s dual-use economic engagement in the region could confer China a novel military and strategic advantage.”
This means China’s February 15 strategic deal with the Cook Islands for those highly sought-after seabed minerals, which are contained in potato-sized nodules on the sea floor formed at high pressure over millions of years, could in fact signal their intention to establish a military base in our region.
With New Zealand having one of the largest maritime territories in the world, with vast quantities of the rare earths and other minerals that play such a crucial role in the key industries that drive technological innovation and support critical infrastructure in transportation, energy, defence, communications, and advanced manufacturing, how long will it be before China turns their attention to us?
The problem New Zealand now faces is that if the Supreme Court has their way, under section 83 (2) of the Marine and Coastal Area Act, control of those crucial seabed minerals will be transferred to Maori: “A customary marine title group has, and may exercise, ownership of minerals (other than petroleum, gold, silver, and uranium) that are within the customary marine title area of that group.”
This means that under the current law, the Courts will end up passing ownership of the country’s crucial seabed resource – and the ability to grant mineral extraction rights to the Chinese – to the hundreds of opportunistic tribal groups claiming Customary Marine Title to our beaches and Territorial Sea.
At this time of rising geopolitical tension, with critical seabed minerals now synonymous with national security, transferring control of New Zealand’s foreshore and seabed to private tribal groups, is no longer in the public interest.
During periods of instability, Governments need to prioritise national security – just as the British have done in nationalising their steel mill and Helen Clark did in 2004 to safeguard our coast from the reckless self-interest of Maori tribal groups.
The Coalition needs to urgently follow their lead.
In the interest of national security, the country’s coastal marine area needs to be nationalised in the public interest by repealing the Marine and Coastal Area Act, cancelling the claims, and restoring the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act, so New Zealand’s coastline and Territorial Sea will be owned and controlled by the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders.
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THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:
*Should the Coalition Government replace the Marine and Coastal Area Act with the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act to restore Crown ownership of New Zealand’s coastal marine area in the interests of national security?
*Poll comments are posted below.
*All NZCPR poll results can be seen in the Archive.
THIS WEEK’S POLL COMMENTS
| Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed should be restored as a matter of urgency. National should never have repealed it. The whole coastal marine area is a national security area that should be totally controlled by the Government in the public interest. | Donald |
| Was Chris Finlayson working in the interests of Maori when he introduced MACA? Were the public and his National Party colleagues duped? It certainly looks like it now. | Murray |
| National’s whole law change has been a complete and utter disaster. The sooner they put it right and return the area to Crown ownership, the better! | Ian |
| Of course tribal groups would sell out to the Chinese. That’s what they are waiting for – the riches that will come from being given the coast. The whole situation is so unbelievably stupid it removes any faith at all in politicians! | Brenda |
| Why on earth has the Coalition allowed an activist Court to over-ride Parliamentary supremacy? It doesn’t make sense. Unless they have a cunning plan that hasn’t yet been revealed! | Simon |