Currently iwi, hāpū and whānau can apply for customary title through the courts under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011. Photo: Rod Long / Unsplash
A seventh urgent Waitangi Tribunal claim into the coalition government policies got underway in Wellington on Monday morning - this time focusing on changes to customary marine title.
Earlier this year Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith confirmed plans for making it harder for Māori to make customary claims on coastlines.
At the time Goldsmith said the bill was being drafted to be introduced in mid-September.
Currently iwi, hapū and whānau can apply for customary title through the courts under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011.
The 2011 Act replaced the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004. Section 58 of the Act requires an applicant group to prove they have "exclusively used and occupied it from 1840 to the present day without substantial interruption".
A judgment by the Court of Appeal last year found groups only needed to show they had enough control over the area that they could keep others from using it, and situations where the law itself had prevented them from doing so could be ignored.
Customary title grants rights over resource consents, conservation, consultation rights over marine mammal watching and coastal policy, and ownership of various minerals and protected objects.
The rights cannot be sold and have no effect on public access, fishing or other recreational activities.
Claimants have begun to give evidence to the Tribunal this afternoon.
Northland iwi Ngātiwai chairperson Aperahama Kerepeti-Edwards told the Tribunal that the Crown was attempting to set the test for how Māori customary rights are determined, without any consultation.
"E kore rawa a Ngātiwai e whakaae kei a te Karauna te mana ki te whiriwhiri i te hohonutanga, i te whānuitanga, i te whāititanga rainei o taku mana tuku iho ki te papataimoana, ki te takutaimoana." (Ngātiwai will never agree that the Crown has the authority to determine the extent of our inherited mana over the foreshore and seabed.)
"Ki tā mātau titiro he raupatu anō tēnei mahi." (In our view this is another form of confiscation.)
Kerepeti-Edwards told the Tribunal that Ngātiwai was a seafaring iwi, without much forest land in their region.
If the iwi did not have customary access to sea they would not be able to fulfill their obligations to manuhiri and would lose mana, he said.
The inquiry is set to run for three days, ending on Wednesday.