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The traditional rights of all New Zealanders to enjoyment of the coastal marine area are protected under the legislation the Government introduced into the House before Easter.
The package was developed in response to the Court of Appeal decision last June that the Māori Land Court could hear claims into the foreshore and seabed.
The difficulty this created for the Government was that the Māori Land Court would have had to apply the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, which was intended for dry land only and was incapable of recognising a property right which did not lead to full and exclusive fee simple title.
That was an unintended consequence of the Act and when acts deliver unintended consequences, Parliaments intervene to right them so that they do what they were intended to do.
But while successive governments for generations have acted to prevent any further private ownership of the foreshore and seabed, the Government's expert advice - and the experience of other British colonies such as Australia and Canada - was that Māori as the original people may hold customary rights.
The Government believe they have achieved the right balance.
The framework vests the foreshore and seabed in perpetuity in the Crown but also provides for the recognition of Māori ancestral connection as the tangata whenua and for the continued exercise of customary activities, for example the launching of waka and the collection of stones and sand for hangi.
The Government has listened carefully to the views of the public as they have drawn up the policy. The issues they had to deal with were controversial and close to people's hearts.
What they have come up with will not entirely please anyone. That was never going to be possible, given the emotions that have been stirred by this debate. But this issue did not fit a winner-take-all approach.
What the Government have tried to do is be fair to all interests and deliver a solution which is broadly acceptable to the majority of fair-minded New Zealanders.
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