Treaty Claims Must Not Block Aquacultural Development

The 150 applications for new marine farms in the Marlborough shows a growing, dynamic industry that has been stifled for too long by the Government's moratorium on new marine farms in the Marlborough Sounds.

ACT New Zealand Deputy Leader Ken Shirley said the decision to lift the moratorium a year early is vital to encouraging the industry to develop.

"The claim of 8 iwi from the top of the South Island for ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Marlborough Sounds and their attempts today to seek an injunction in the High Court to stop the lifting of this moratorium is a major concern to the progressive development of aquaculture in New Zealand.

"ACT New Zealand urged the Attorney General to refer the Maori Land Court finding on ownership of the foreshore and seabed direct to the Appeal Court for urgent resolution last year. But instead we face a drawn out process characterised by uncertainty.

"In settling fully, fairly and finally the grievances of the past, we cannot put at risk development for the future.

"It is hard to think of a worse investment climate for aquaculture at a time when New Zealand should be encouraging enterprise and the creation of jobs and wealth," Ken Shirley said.

ENDS

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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>>