Iwi leader defends forum's agenda

A Far North leader has defended the Iwi Leaders Forum lobbying the Government on the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Although the Maori Party supports the group's involvement in discussions, Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira took a swipe at the leaders in Parliament last week, saying many of them had stayed away from the 2004 foreshore and seabed hikoi when ordinary Maori showed up in their tens of thousands.

It would be a "grave disservice" to leave those ordinary constituents out of the debate now, he said.

Professor Margaret Mutu, a Ngati Kahu leader, chaired the latest round of the Iwi Leaders Forum at Waitangi this month.

The group has more than 50 tribes as members and was set up in 2005. Membership of the leaders group is drawn from the forum, whose members are elected chairs of iwi organisations.

Professor Mutu said the group has met a number of times with Attorney General and Treaty Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson since the 2008 election, and membership was fluid.

She believed there was "no conflict" between Mr Harawira's sentiments and the leaders group - both had responsibilities to different groups.

"Hone's absolutely right. Basically what he's saying is that the Maori Party is answerable to all those people in a way that the iwi leaders aren't.

"We [iwi leaders] are not answerable to the public, we're answerable to our iwi, and if they don't like what we're doing they tell us real fast."

Iwi leaders were well placed to engage directly with the Government on the foreshore and seabed because they knew best what was going on at a tribal level in their own regions, she said. However, Canterbury University's Maori and indigenous studies school head Rawiri Taonui said questions about iwi leaders' accountability had to be addressed.

"Although these people have the mandate of their tribes, there's not necessarily a high degree of participation in tribal elections by members of tribes, very many of them are elected with only fractions of tribes participating in the vote."

Iwi leaders' political voices are "fundamental" to a healthy democracy because their viewpoint represented a connection to cultural identities and values. However, their input couldn't come at the cost of excluding Maori who weren't engaged in their iwi "because in a democratic society no one is going to accept that their say in the world is silent".

"What we have to remember is that what we call traditional leadership today is no longer the traditional leadership that we used to have. It's a hybrid and so the two [elected and iwi leaders] can work together. We have to sit down and make sure that we work in a way that gets the best for Maori."