MARINE AND COASTAL ACT'S COSTLY SHAMBLES WILL HAUNT COUNTRY FOR DECADES

Touted by National as offering a durable and expeditious solution to Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Act, Chris Finlayson’s Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 (MACA) has unleashed hundreds of competing claims that will tie the courts up for decades, costing the country tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in claimant funding, policy advice and legal fees.

Approximately 380 claims were lodged for “negotiation” with the Attorney General, while 200 further were lodged in the High Court before 3rd April 2017, the Act’s six year claim deadline......

Continue reading Sarah Taylor’s foreboding article here > https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/sarah-taylor-marine-and-coastal-acts.html

Finlayson hijacks regional planning

A race-based Regional Planning Committee has been imposed upon the Hawke's Bay Regional Council and included in the proposed five-council amalgamation without scrutiny or debate.

Residents of Hawke’s Bay have a postal vote starting August 24, 2015, to decide whether or not the Hastings, Napier, Wairoa, Central Hawke’s Bay councils, and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, should merge as a single council with a regional planning committee, a Maori Board, and a natural resources board.

The regional planning committee, comprising 10 iwi appointees and 10 councillors, is up and running despite the regional council having only eight councillors and despite the fact that the bill legalising this committee has not been passed. The iwi appointees are full voting committee members.

The Hawke's Bay Regional Planning Committee Bill, to create co-governance stipulated in local tribal group Ngati Pahauwera's Deed of Settlement, is a radical bill which delivers, under the guise of "cultural redress", permanent co-management over natural resources in Hawke's Bay to nine local treaty settlement groups.

Ngati Pahauwera's treaty settlement also suggests that co-governance may also be extended to land zoning and use. This happened in Auckland, with building consents, with applicants required to pay 19 tribal groups as part of the process.

Regional councillor Christine Scott said: "This is no sub-committee. It is a full committee of council with decision-making powers. It is the only decision maker on all matters pertaining to resource management plans. While its decisions are in the form of recommendations to council, council cannot amend them"......

Continue reading Sarah Taylor's alarming blog - click > HERE