Hui aims to educate on foreshore issues and promote debate

1.00pm

Banning ignorance and encouraging debate on the seabed and foreshore issue is the aim of a hui for Maori and Pakeha in Auckland today, says organiser Huia Lloyd.

The day-long hui at the Waipapa Marae at Auckland University was expected to attract more than 400 people to discuss the Waitangi Tribunals foreshore and seabed report.

"It is not necessarily a Maori against Pakeha thing. It is a New Zealand thing."

However, Ms Lloyd said there appeared to be a lack of awareness from both Maori and Pakeha.

"We are seeing messages floating around -- all sorts of crazy stuff -- totally out of proportion or just totally incorrect so today is an opportunity to clear all those up and show people this is what the story really is," she said.

"There is a huge number of people keen to be informed and are tired of the debate going backwards and forwards. They are prepared to come along and say 'What is the story'," she said.

She said a good mix of people from both sides of the debate would speak at the hui.

Margaret Mutu, chairperson of the Te Runanga a Iwi o Ngati Kahu and head of the Department of Maori Studies at the University of Auckland, said there was little doubt the foreshore and seabed issue was one of great constitutional significance.

She said the tribunal report said clearly little was being provided to Maori under the foreshore and seabed proposal "but much is being taken away," she said.

Another hui organiser, Matiu Rei, said the Government's poor handling of this issue had created an environment where the inflammatory statements made by national leader Dr Don Brash continued to fester.

"Brash's statement are high on rhetoric but low on substance, failing to heal the widening rift between liberal Pakeha and moderate Maori on the one hand and extremists on the other," Mr Rei said.

- NZPA