By AUDREY YOUNG
Whanganui iwi representatives held a two-hour meeting with Genesis Power executives in Wellington last night over the Whanganui River claim. They will meet again this week.
Protesters in Moutoa Gardens were still there last night, although they were due to meet their representatives later in the evening.
Local Maori MP and Associate Maori Affairs Minister Tariana Turia helped to set up the meeting with Genesis in a central hotel.
Also at the meeting was Whanganui River Maori Trust Board chairman Archie Taiaroa and Ken Mair, leading a fresh occupation over water resource consents.
Genesis chairman Brian Corban would not say what was discussed but said there had been "progress and understanding of one another's position".
"But we've got to continue talking and we'll be doing that over the next few days."
Genesis has been granted an apparent 35-year consent to continue to draw water from the headways for the Tongariro power scheme.
The iwi has appealed and the Environment Court is due to hear the case early next year.
The granting of the consent at the same time as the Crown is preparing to enter negotiations with iwi over the river claim has prompted a fresh occupation of Moutoa Gardens - although a permit to be there lawfully has been extended.
But the Herald has learned that a condition of the consents for Genesis to draw water from the headways of six headwater streams of the Whanganui River is that they be reviewed within a year of any Treaty of Waitangi settlement to the river claim.
Genesis proposed the condition and it was accepted by the consent authority, Genesis confirmed yesterday.
Genesis meets iwi on river claim
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