John Armstrong: National plays with fire on foreshore law

In flirting with the idea of backing the Maori Party's bid to repeal the foreshore and seabed law, the National Party is courting trouble.

Unnecessarily so. National risks losing far more than it might gain from reopening this particular Pandora's box.

The party may derive some joy in watching the Labour-led minority Government - particularly its Maori component - squirming in embarrassment again.

But that spin-off has to be weighed against the danger of National provoking a backlash from its own supporters annoyed and confused by what the party's opponents are already saying is a u-turn on its previous insistence that the foreshore remains in Crown ownership.

At best, National will be seen to be playing politics for politics' sake. At worst, it will be accused of ripping the scab off a sore. It took Labour the best part of 18 months to come up with a compromise with which most people could live.

Thinking aloud about reviewing the law - as Gerry Brownlee did this week - is therefore high-risk stuff. More so when Pita Sharples' measure may never be drawn in the ballot of numerous private member's bills competing for the few available slots on Parliament's order paper.

In Mr Brownlee's defence, National knows it must take a step back from Don Brash's uncompromising language on race to function as an effective broad-based party - something acknowledged in the maiden speeches of many of the party's new intake of MPs.

Still, there must be other, safer ways to stage a mild retreat, rather than confuse voters by being seen figuratively arm-in-arm with Dr Sharples and Tariana Turia after previously complaining Labour's foreshore law pandered to Maori.

However, National would dearly love to inflict a psychological blow on the new Government early in its term with a major parliamentary defeat.

Unfortunately for National, Labour will not oblige by bringing legislation before the House without a guaranteed majority. Enter Dr Sharples. His bill is the opportunity National is looking for because several Opposition parties want the law repealed, although for very different reasons.

With National, Act and the Greens on board, the Maori Party would fall just one vote short. However, a close vote would put even more pressure on Labour's Maori MPs to cross the floor.

National has other reasons for helping Dr Sharples. If he and National can strike a deal over his bill, that bodes well for further co-operation which might ultimately see the two parties as partners in some future Government.

However, though it may be possible to cobble together a temporary coalition to wipe the foreshore law off the statute books, there would be little agreement on what would replace it.

That would leave National terribly exposed to charges from Labour that it had been grossly irresponsible.

Conscious of that, Mr Brownlee seems to be saying his party is working on a solution that might allow Maori something more than just customary rights to small parts of the foreshore, but in very few instances.

In the same breath, he is ruling out the kind of large territorial claims to the foreshore which the Maori Party asserts as of right.

The message is clear. If the Maori Party wants its bill to progress, it is going to have to compromise big-time.

It also has to accept it is being used as a pawn in National's wider strategy of destabilising the new multi-party Government.

Even so, Mr Brownlee must proceed cautiously. It is not only Labour which risks being destabilised by the shifting sands of the foreshore.