John Armstrong: Shooting down hui is a shot in the foot

COMMENT

Northland iwi effectively shot themselves in the foot by giving the Government an excuse to duck out of fronting at yesterday's hui on the foreshore and seabed issue at the Terenga Paraoa marae.

Sure, local Maori may now feel a whole lot better having refused to be party to consultation which, with some justification, they believe is little more than a sham.

And it was inevitable that at least one of the 11 Crown-initiated hui taking place up and down the country this month would end up being abandoned as Maori exercised the bluntest of means to rubbish the Government's discussion document.

But the Government got that message long ago.

The tactics are also questionable for other reasons.

First, Government ministers are no doubt privately delighted to have escaped another long public haranguing for their rejection of Maori ownership of the foreshore and seabed.

Instead, for the first time during the round of hui, ministers were able to lay claim to the moral high ground by intimating that they had been personally insulted by their hosts.

They were also able to scapegoat activists such as Ngapuhi's Titewhai Harawira, portraying her opposition to yesterday's hui as being confined to like-minded radicals, when anger with the Government's foreshore and seabed policy is far more widespread among Northland Maori.

Second, and more seriously, by calling off hui and slapping ministers in the face, iwi risk making it more tricky for the Government to come up with a meaningful compromise on the whole foreshore and seabed imbroglio that gives more than obligatory recognition to Maori customary rights.

In trying to satisfy both sides of the argument, the Government is tip-toeing through a political minefield.

It has sought - and so far succeeded - to silence agitated Pakeha with a bottom-line promise that the foreshore and seabed will be "public domain" with access guaranteed for everyone.

The more Maori moan, the more Pakeha will think the Government has got it right.

But the Government has been quietly trying to placate Maori when it comes to the question of how to manage public access to parts of the coastline where iwi argue that they enjoy what amounts to property rights.

Trying to find suitable phraseology that recognises those customary rights so they can be written into law, the Government has been mooting broad concepts such as "co-management", "guardianship" and "customary title".

But the details were never going to be negotiated in the acrimonious atmosphere of the regional hui.

The real dialogue is going on behind the scenes as the Government talks with pragmatic Maori leaders on a national level to find a mutually acceptable way through the impasse.

But any solution that emerges from these private discussions will fall over if the Government is viewed by the Pakeha majority to be backing down in the face of the kind of Maori belligerence witnessed yesterday.