Foreshore talks 'staying secret for now'

Negotiations on legislation to replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act won't move into the public arena until agreement is reached with Maori, Prime Minister John Key says.

The Government said last year it would repeal the act but not until an alternative had been worked out.

Labour has accused it of working in secret with Maori groups and says it should reveal what it is talking about.

But Mr Key said yesterday that progress was being made and it wasn't the right time to go public with details.

"There's not much point in me having public discussions if it's not going to progress with the support of Maori," he said.

"That's where we're at ... we're working our way through that."

Mr Key met the Iwi Leaders Group at Waitangi last week to discuss replacement legislation and said the talks were useful, informative and largely successful.

"Within Maoridom you can't even say the Iwi Leaders Group speak for all Maori, but they do speak for a big chunk of them," he said. The group of about 30 leaders represents the largest iwi with the biggest economic base.

Mr Key acknowledged there were different views and demands within Maoridom, some of them extreme, and there were "deeply political" relationships involved.

"All you can do, in the end, is try to get a result that is acceptable to the majority," he said.

The previous Labour Government introduced the Foreshore and Seabed Act, which put all of it in Crown ownership to avoid the possibility of courts ruling that some customary titles could convert to private ownership.

Mr Key said the closed-door negotiations shouldn't worry anyone.

"What would be concerning to New Zealanders would be if their bottom lines weren't incorporated in any solution," he said.

"I think their bottom lines are quite clear - universal access to the beaches and a position that doesn't put them in a worse financial position than they should otherwise be."

- NZPA