Academic urges co-management solution for Foreshore and Seabed.

Treaty expert and AUT Professor of History, Dr. Paul Moon, has urged all parties involved in the Foreshore and Seabed negotiations to consider a co-management solution of the sort recently proposed for Auckland’s volcanic cones.

“The Government has applied an imaginative and positive solution to the Auckland volcanic cones”, Dr. Moon says, “and it seems to make sense that a similar model could be used just as effectively for the foreshore and seabed”.

He says that a nationwide settlement of this nature – which would pave the way for the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act – may require some additional components because of some of the potential complexities involved:

“Perhaps a new form of ‘mini-Tribunal’ could be established to resolve issues of boundaries and iwi mandates, but otherwise, the basic premise applied to Auckland’s volcanic cones could become the template for the biggest Treaty challenge facing the Government in a decade”.

The idea of a ‘mini-Tribunal’ stems from the requirement for speedy resolutions to cross claims, and a need to keep the foreshore and seabed issue out of the conventional court system, where litigation could seriously delay any settlement.

“It is in everyone’s interests that this matter be dealt with swiftly: the Government can then chalk up a major settlement; and iwi can more quickly commence management of the foreshore and seabed”, says Dr Moon

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