About time

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, April 22nd, 2009 - 14 comments
Categories: labour, national, racism - Tags:

It’s good that Labour has rejoined good leftwing principles over the foreshore and seabed.

Labour was spooked by the popularity of National’s race baiting into emulating them. They should never have denied iwi the right to go to court to try to establish their customary rights to sections of the foreshore and seabed.

There are some things in politics that are just not worth doing and matching the Tories’ racism was one of them. On this issue, Labour became nearly as bad as National (in fact, National voted against the Foreshore and Seabed Act because they’re racist scum and they thought the law was too generous to Maori).

Labour should learn its lesson and never again sink to National’s level by appealing to bigotry. Clayton, take note.

14 comments on “About time ”

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  1. Stephen 1
    22 April 2009 at 11:51 am

    It’s good that Labour has rejoined good leftwing principles over the foreshore and seabed.

    Isn’t passing a law which deems the title to that ‘property’ should be held by the Crown more a left wing thing?

  2. djp 2
    22 April 2009 at 11:57 am

    You are right Stephen, Eddies slant on this issue is twisted to say the least

  3. lprent 3
    22 April 2009 at 12:13 pm

    Links? I have no real idea about what you speak because there is no ‘context’…. 😈

  4. BLiP 4
    22 April 2009 at 12:34 pm

    The NZ Fox News Herald describes it as a backdown by Labour.

    • Daveski 4.1
      22 April 2009 at 12:39 pm

      Good point BLiP. It’s not a backdown at all but a flip flop.

      • Pascal's bookie 4.1.1
        22 April 2009 at 12:46 pm

        Fair enough. How would you describe national’s postion(s)? Clown shoes perhaps?

        What is National’s position anyway? As distinct from the government’s ‘wait and see what happens with the report’. Do they have one?

        • Daveski 4.1.1.1
          22 April 2009 at 12:52 pm

          Touche!

          I think it is clear that National always supported property rights which ironically lead National closer to the MP than many expected. I also think that Labour was playing a Clayton’s race card.

          I think it is interesting to note that while many Labourites still claim no mistakes were made and the result was simply a desire to change the toothpaste, Labour has effectively dismantled two key planks (this and the EFA).

          IMO this makes it difficult for Goff long term in the same way that Key has been able to do a flip flop of absolute totality and get away with it ie it wasn’t his speech at Orewa.

          • Pascal's bookie 4.1.1.1.1
            22 April 2009 at 1:01 pm

            National certainly supported property rights to the f&s. But whose? Perhaps I was a sleeping and dreaming but I recall it was the crowns rights they were asserting. Brownlee mentioned beaches, Nick Smith was all over the place. What say they now?

            Agree completely re clayton. National can have that mob as far as I’m concerned, they worked so hard to get them afterall. Perhaps that’s why the quietness from the Nat’s re what they’d like to see happen.

      • BLiP 4.1.2
        22 April 2009 at 12:50 pm

        I’m tempted to squabble with you just for the hell of it but – alas – I concede, on this one, Labour got it all wrong and is continuing to suffer the consequences. Might as well swallow the dead rats now, I guess.

        • Daveski 4.1.2.1
          22 April 2009 at 12:53 pm

          Bugger!! If I’d waited a little longer, I wouldn’t have had to concede National’s complete and total flip flop 🙂

      • greatape 4.1.3
        22 April 2009 at 12:58 pm

        Completely agree Daveski, but what do you expect from a party/leader struggling to regain public support?

  5. Rich 5
    22 April 2009 at 1:37 pm

    So I imagined the Kiwi/Iwi billboards?

    I welcome this move from Labour, however I think that just as everyone should have reasonable right of access to customary forsehore, so they should to privately owned foreshore (with very limited exceptions, like major wharves). The right of access should also extend some metres inland and along rivers (the Queens Chain concept).

  6. ripp0 6
    22 April 2009 at 4:21 pm

    Just curious but does the legislation – existent and/or amended and/or proposed – confer absolute rights on the terms foreshore and seabed.

    Let’s say I’m coming from a position of actual change as per sea-level rise. Which without anti-flood structures etc would permanently change the territorial aspects of both terms. Around enzed, as elsewhere.

    Absolute rights might make someone’s seafront property subordinate to otherwise existent laws…

    As I say, just asking…

  7. toad 7
    22 April 2009 at 5:23 pm

    I’m with Eddie on this one. The legislative expropriation of property rights (or in this case the right to establish property rights through the courts, as none had actually been established) without compensation is neither left wing or right wing – it is just plain authoritarian – the sort of thing Mussolini or Stalin would have been proud of actually.

    If Labour genuinely believed that it was in the nation’s interests for foreshore and seabed to be in public owndership they should have done the fair thing by allowing the Courts to determine what Maori property rights in that regard existed in the first place, and then negotiated to compensate Maori for the expropriation.

    Instead, they rode roughshod over proper process and allied themselves with the rednecks and bigots.

    Good to see a change of heart from them.