A Māori legal expert says “the title to the foreshore and seabed can’t be owned by anybody” amid backlash against a Hobson’s Pledge ad that ran prominently on the front of the NZ Herald newspaper last week.
The ad read: “Restore the foreshore and seabed to public ownership.”
Carwyn Jones told Breakfast this morning: “What we have in the Marine and Coastal Area Act now is that the title to the foreshore and seabed can’t be owned by anybody.
“It can’t be owned by Māori and it’s effectively held, owned by nobody. In many ways, the same kind of regime that you would expect in a public ownership regime exists.
“My thoughts were that this [ad] is incredibly misleading, inaccurate and clearly designed to whip up anti-Māori sentiment.”
The ad also said “most Kiwis have no idea that almost New Zealand’s entire coast is currently under application before the courts to be awarded to iwi as customary marine titles”.
However, the Land Information New Zealand website explains: “Customary marine title recognises the relationship of iwi, hapū or whānau with a part of the common marine and coastal area.
“Customary marine title can’t be sold, and free public access, fishing and other recreational activities are allowed to continue in customary marine title areas.”
More information on customary marine titles was available on the Office for Māori-Crown Relations website.
Jones told Breakfast the Herald advertisement was “clearly intended to make people think that Māori will be talking ownership of the foreshore, and that clearly isn’t that case”.
“It’s clearly prohibited by the Marine and Coastal Area Act. The only people whose property rights were taken away by the Foreshore and Seabed Act — and now the Marine and Coastal Area Act — were Māori.”
A spokesperson for NZME, which owned the Herald, said the graphic printed with the print edition of the newspaper was clearly labelled as a paid advertisement.
But Jones said that labelling did not exempt the publisher from its obligations to accuracy.
“The concern would be that this is clearly misleading and inaccurate,” he said, calling the ad “propaganda”.
“The concern is that this misinformation is being spread about what the Marine and Coastal Area Act does.
“The ad clearly implies that New Zealanders won’t all have equal rights to public access and fishing and so forth, and again, these are things that the Marine and Coastal Area Act specifically protects.
“The customary title does not give all the full property rights of any kind of normal, free, simple title.”
Where to next?
Māori broadcaster Waatea News has ended any “informal or formal” agreement with the NZ Herald, its general manager Matthew Tukaki said.
Te Pāti Māori said it has added the Herald to its “whitelist” and “will no longer engage with the NZ Herald”.
Kawea Te Rongo, the Māori Journalists’ Association, said the advertisement “drives division and perpetuates racist rhetoric but also promotes the false narrative that the foreshore and seabed is owned by Māori”.
Asked about the outcry and whether legal action could follow, Jones said: “This is not my area of expertise but I understand that the appropriate mechanism for dealing with issues in advertising is through the advertising standards body.”
The Advertising Standards Authority was an industry organisation that set standards for responsible advertising in New Zealand and handled a complaints process.
Jones added he was very disappointed in the situation. “I think that, actually, most New Zealanders are very fair-minded people and would like property rights to be respected.
“I think, in this instance, we see misinformation which is intended to incite anti-Māori sentiment that is very divisive and is entirely based on misinformation.
“I think it would be good for the NZ Herald to make some formal statements around taking responsibility for publishing – even though it’s an advertisement – publishing inaccurate, misleading information.”
Jones said he’d like that responsibility to continue in the future.
“Even if it is advertising, I don’t think media organisations can completely wash their hands of advertising material just because someone’s paid them to publish it.”
NZME response
In a statement to RNZ, an NZME spokesperson last week defended the decision to run the advertisement.
“There are several thousand advertisements placed across NZME’s platforms every week and publishing an advertisement is in no way NZME’s endorsement of the advertised message, products, services or other.”
The company said responsibility for advertisements lay with the company’s commercial team and was separate to the Herald’s editorial team.
On the day advertisement was published, Hobson’s Pledge leader Don Brash said in a statement: “We are expecting some blowback and the poor folks at the Herald will no doubt be receiving complaints, but this is because our opponents don’t want New Zealanders to be informed on this issue.”
