July 28, 2014
Beyer seeks to regain foreshore mana
Former Labour MP Georgina Beyer says she regrets not walking from the party over the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
Ms Beyer is standing for Mana in Te Tai Tonga, despite needing dialysis four times a day.
She says it’s a way of atoning for voting for the controversial bill, which she did only after intense pressure in caucus once Te Tai Hauauru MP Tariana Turia had quit the party.
"There’s nothing quite so sobering as when one feels they have betrayed their people and I vowed and declared from that time on I would never ever again in my life allow myself to be compromised like that, not for politics, not for anything like that. We sold our people down the drain and it was shameful, and I still feel that shame to this day," she says.
Georgina Beyer says the Maori Party’s replacement Marine and Coastal Areas (Takutai Moana) Act still sets the bar too high for Maori to prove customary title, and she likes Mana’s policy of putting the foreshore and seabed in tupuna title and letting the crown try to claim ownership.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH GEORGINA BEYER CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjA1MjU=
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