From Stuff.
Minister confirms seabed and foreshore change, limiting Māori rights
August 5, 2025 • 2:55pm
The Government has revived its plan to make it harder for Māori to claim customary title to marine and coastal areas.
Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith confirmed Parliament would soon debate the final stages of a law change that will retrospectively remove some Māori rights to the seabed and foreshore.
The change would force around half-a-dozen claimants back to court, with the law change retrospectively undoing settled claims dating back to July 2024. That was when Goldsmith originally announced his intention to change the law.
This decision is expected to stir further protest from Māori and those concerned by the coalition Government’s policies regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
When the plan was first announced last year, Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris told Stuff the Government was playing with fire if it was serious about this proposal.
“There will be some fireworks ahead” he said.
The last time a government legislated to retrospectively remove Māori rights to the seabed and foreshore, in 2004 under Labour, the historic Seabed and Foreshore Hīkoi swarmed Parliament. It also split the Labour Party, leading to creation of Te Pāti Māori.
In response, the National-Te Pāti Māori coalition created the Marine and Coastal Areas Act which settled on a compromise. It said nobody owned the seabed or foreshore, but Māori could claim “customary title” if they could prove they had “exclusively used and occupied it from 1840”.
Customary marine title is not ownership. But it does mean that the holder of that title can have a say about resource management applications which impact that marine area.
A customary title also does not prohibit fishing or other recreational activity in the area.
Goldsmith told Stuff, on Tuesday, he would wait to see if this move would spark similar protest.
“Time will tell. We would have expected to have passed this legislation in December. There was concern, but look, there are a wide variety of views,” he said.
Comment
Paul Goldsmith stop bloody dithering and get on and get the necessary legislation passed yesterday. You and your National Caucus mates have short memories:
THIS IS WHY NEW ZEALANDERS VOTED FOR YOU IN THE OCTOBER 2023 ELECTION.
ACT is on the job but, you lot and NZFirst are holding them up and we do not like it at all!!!
Finally if Iwi and other claimants decide to go back to Court they pay and hopefully the court will order full costs against them too.
No way should it be a further impost on Taxpayers!!!
No Minister 