The Government’s controversial Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill has passed its final hurdle in Parliament tonight, amid protests on beaches around the country and fierce debate over whether it erodes Māori customary rights or restores the law’s original intent.
The Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill has reached its third and final reading, capping off months of controversy and protests across the motu.
The Government says the changes will clarify and restore Parliament’s original intent under the 2011 law. Still, many argue they will make it significantly harder for iwi and hapū to have customary marine title recognised, amounting to a modern form of legislative raupatu.
Tonight’s debate follows a call to “Burn the Bill,” with bonfire-style protests taking place on beaches and on Parliament steps.
Last week, Rueben Taipari delivered a petition to Parliament signed by more than 20,000 people, calling on the Government to abandon the reforms.
The petition, gathered in just two days, urged the Government to uphold Māori customary rights affirmed by the courts, including last year’s Supreme Court ruling that tikanga Māori must be central in deciding customary title claims.
Taipari told Te Ao Māori News the movement was part of a wider stand against “legislative raupatu saying.
“The raupatu of our Takutai Moana will never be extinguished.”
As MPs prepared to cast their final votes, whānau were invited to gather on beaches for the #BurnTheBill demonstrations, lighting fires, sharing waiata and karakia, and symbolically throwing copies of the Bill into the flames.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and Te Tai Tonga MP, Tākuta Ferris, themselves burnt the bill at the bottom of the House of Parliament steps before they went into the house to debate the third reading.
The Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said protesters were “entitled to express their views,” while Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour likened the demonstrations to “book-burning,” calling them “anti-intellectual.”
Final debate - “We aren’t going anywhere.”
Inside the debating chamber, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith opened the third reading by defending the Bill as a necessary step to restore legal certainty and reinforce parliamentary intent.
“I acknowledge this will be disappointing for those who have already been through the process. This is not something we have done lightly. But there is still a long way to go, much of our coastline has yet to be considered, and it is important that we get this right.” Minister Goldsmith told the debating chamber.
He said the Marine and Coastal Area Act was carefully judged to strike a delicate balance between public, private, and iwi interests.
“The sole purpose of these amendments is to ensure that balance continues to be struck and that it endures over time.” He concluded.
Opposition MPs accused the Government of rewriting history and undermining Māori rights guaranteed under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Labour’s Peeni Henare said the Bill marked another chapter in a long history of laws that had treated Māori as “second-class citizens”, eroding rights that pre-date the Crown and ignoring the whakapapa that ties whānau to their moana.
“This House continues to ignore the historic, the customary, and indeed the property rights of Māori, rights that no act of Parliament can ever truly extinguish,” Henare spoke personally about his daughter’s birthday this week, saying her ancestral name reminded him why his people’s connection to the Takutai Moana is not just political but deeply personal as he continued to outline his whakapapa links to particular coastlines.
“Our names, our lands, our moana all tell the stories of who we are; these are not abstract legal claims, they are living connections passed down through generations.”
“I marched against the Foreshore and Seabed Act in 2004, and when Labour returned to government, we apologised for that wrong. I hope one day this Government will do the same, to stand here and apologise to Māori across the motu for this one.” Henare concluded.
Green Party MP, Hūhana Lyndon, who has been consistently vocal against the MACA Bill amendments and accepted the 20,000-strong petition against the reforms delivered to Parliament last week, was impassioned in her opposition in the chamber.
Lyndon questioned when Māori ever lost their rights to the moana and foreshore, saying the Bill continued a long pattern of the Crown “changing the rules” to suit itself.
“At what point did Māori lose their rights to the moana, to the tides, to the seabed and foreshore? Tell us when and how those rights were extinguished, because they never have been.”
She pointed to protests on beaches across Te Tai Tokerau, saying they showed Māori were united in opposition and would continue to assert their mana over the Takutai Moana.
“People are burning the Bill on the coastline tonight, and they will be there tomorrow, because we are not going anywhere.”
Lyndon said the retrospective changes were “demeaning” and disrespected years of work by claimants who followed the Crown’s own process.
“This Government has changed the goalposts again because the courts started recognising what we already knew, that Māori never ceded authority over our moana.”
“There will be apologies in the future for this, just like there were for past injustices, because this legislation wrecks hard-won progress and damages the Crown–Māori relationship.”
Green MP Steve Abel said the Bill was a “cruel injustice” that reversed even the most basic legal principles protecting Māori rights.
“This Bill undoes one of the most fundamental principles of common law. It forces Māori to prove an unbroken connection to their own moana while the Crown assumes their rights were extinguished.”
Abel argued that the reforms were built on a false premise, saying the Government’s claim that it was restoring Parliament’s original intent “simply isn’t true.”
“It shifts the burden of proof back onto Māori to prove the most ludicrous and obvious thing, that they have customary connection to their own coastline.”
“There’s no decent future for this country if we keep passing laws like this. It’s mean-spirited, it’s shitty, it’s petty, and one day another government will have to apologise for it.” Abel said.
Labour’s Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel drew laughter across the chamber when she told the House,
“We’re not talking about Oriental Bay, we’re talking about Hicks Bay,” in a pointed reminder that Māori connections to the moana are lived realities, not abstract legal ideas.
“You can keep changing the rules and shifting the goalposts, but our people will always be out there on the water, generation after generation. We are not going anywhere.”
“This Bill isn’t just a disgrace to your relationship with Māori, it’s a disgrace to your relationship with all New Zealanders.”
“Your government might last three years, maybe less. But our whakapapa, our connection to the moana, has lasted for centuries, and it will still be here long after your policies are forgotten.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said.
What the Bill changes
The amendments tighten the test for Customary Marine Title (CMT) and Protected Customary Rights (PCR), requiring stronger proof of uninterrupted exclusive use since 1840 and removing the previous presumption that customary rights had not been extinguished.
Critics say the changes reverse several recent High Court and Supreme Court decisions that recognised tikanga-based connections to the moana. The Government insists the reforms are about clarity and public confidence, not diminishing Māori rights.
With the bill now passing its third reading, it will come into force early next year, with at least seven cases already before the courts expected to be reheard under the new, tighter tests.
Māori Law Society: “extinguishes Māori rights.”
Te Hunga Roia Māori o Aotearoa, the Māori Law Society, has condemned the Bill, warning it will erode Māori rights and leave the law in “a state of confusion” that undermines the integrity of the legal and judicial process.
In a statement released on the day of the third reading, co-presidents Natalie Coates and Tai Ahu said the legislation would “extinguish Māori rights in the takutai moana” and impose “extremely high legal tests” that would effectively prevent many iwi and hapū from succeeding in their lawful claims.
The group said assertions that the Bill merely returns the law to its original intent had been “thoroughly debunked,” including by the very architect of the 2011 Act, Christopher Finlayson KC.
They warned that the amendments would create an “inequitable mess,” with some iwi having their cases determined under the former, more permissive rules, while others would be forced to meet a stricter test based on the timing of their hearings.
Such inconsistency, they said, “offends basic principles of fairness and justice” and would lead to costly re-hearings and appeals.
“This law is a step backwards for justice in Aotearoa,” the statement said.
“It erases the progress Māori have long fought for in the recognition of their takutai moana rights and erodes faith in the legal system and the Crown–Māori relationship.”
Te Hunga Roia Māori is calling on all opposition parties to commit to overturning the Bill and to implement instead the Waitangi Tribunal’s earlier recommendations for improving the existing Act, describing the current changes as “a regressive step backwards.”
