Govt admission: Maori title will apply to entire coastline

The Government has finally come clean on the scope of its plans for Maori customary title over our foreshore and seabed, says National's Constitutional and Treaty of Waitangi spokesman Dr Wayne Mapp.

Today the Attorney-General, in answers to parliamentary questions from Dr Mapp, said that the Government intended Maori customary title would apply to virtually the entire coastline.

Dr Mapp says this admission will shock New Zealanders who had been led to believe by the Prime Minister that such title would apply only to a few selected areas.

"The Government also confirmed today that its plans will give Maori special consultation rights over the management and development of all New Zealand beaches.

"This is a gross breach of the principle of equality before the law," say Dr Mapp

"It can only lead to division in our country".

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>