Clark cans moves to alter foreshore and seabed deal

Nanaia Mahuta

Prime Minister Helen Clark says a private member's bill that would reverse an undertaking Labour gave to New Zealand First preventing legal aid being claimed for foreshore and seabed cases would be deferred.

She said the bill, in the name of Tainui MP Nanaia Mahuta, had not been approved by the Labour Party caucus and "came out of left field".

Helen Clark received an undertaking from Ms Mahuta at the weekend that the bill would go no further, and that is expected to be conveyed to New Zealand First.

New Zealand First supported the Government's Foreshore and Seabed Act, vesting ownership in the Crown, on the proviso that any party seeking recognition for customary rights under the act not be granted legal aid. The party argued that it did not want to extend the so-called grievance industry.

Leader Winston Peters wrote to Helen Clark yesterday seeking an explanation and saying it would be a "most disturbing and duplicitous development were Labour now to countenance this bill".

"It had always been our intention to avoid the protracted and expensive litigious process which had accompanied the fisheries settlement and invariably saw Maori pitted against Maori," Mr Peters' letter said.

National's Maori affairs spokesman, Gerry Brownlee, said the episode was an example of what Labour MP John Tamihere had been talking about to Investigate magazine about Labour's deal-making with support parties.

Mr Tamihere had said in that interview: "We wouldn't survive without [Finance Minister Michael] Cullen - he can cut a deal on a piece of legislation. He can change a single word in a piece of legislation without those other bastards [coalition partners] knowing about it."

Ms Mahuta told the Herald on Friday that Labour's Maori caucus knew about the bill and Mr Tamihere said the Maori caucus supported it.

The bill was about equality because legal aid was denied to one group.

"The beauty about the supremacy of Parliament is the right to have another go if you think it's unfair," Mr Tamihere said yesterday.

Meanwhile, Helen Clark has dismissed a report that Maori land might be exempt from proposed legislation allowing public access to major waterways on private property.

"Absolutely not," she said. "Legislation in this area has to be comprehensive."