KEY POINTS:
Election time pressure is affecting both backers and opponents of Te Runanga o Ngati Porou's proposed foreshore and seabed agreement with the Crown.
For the last month Te Runanga o Ngati Porou has been running a ratification process that has been subject to claim and counter-claim of wrongdoing between the two camps.
The Foreshore and Seabed Act vests ownership below the high-tide mark in the Crown but also sets out a path to redress for iwi - including direct negotiations. Under the February agreement, which is yet to be legislated, Ngati Porou has gained a wide range of rights, consultation, veto and co-management rights.
At 5pm today the runanga's postal ballot closes and although two more hui are planned, with 14 completed, the ratification process by individual hapu from East Cape to Gisborne is, in effect, finished.
Treaty lawyer Darell Naden represents Ruawaipu and Te Aitanga a Hauiti groups who are accusing the runanga of rigging votes, not counting them properly, restaging hui to get positive outcomes and being less than open about what threshold exists to qualify hapu agreement to the deal.
This meant the runanga had undermined the credibility of its own ratification process, he said.
"There's this history of no rules and its flowed through to the ratification process right here.
"If there are some rules they're not letting them out there, but I think there are actually no rules," Mr Naden said.
He is awaiting the outcome of an urgent application before the Waitangi Tribunal to halt the process but with the election looming the pressure is mounting for the tribunal to make a call.
"If they [the Government] introduce a bill into the house the tribunal's jurisdiction drops away. That's entirely our timeframe."
Runanga negotiator Matanuku Mahuika said it was a priority to get the results to Labour's Cabinet as soon as possible - before next Monday.
"There's no guarantee we'll be dealing with the same government after the election. So we want to protect the position that we've established and don't want to have it easily undermined by a new government."
