Peters plays hard to get with inquiry

By RUTH BERRY

NZ First leader Winston Peters is now reserving judgment on whether to support the Government's Treaty of Waitangi inquiry, set to be announced shortly.

Neither National nor Act are supporting the proposed constitutional inquiry and the withdrawal of Mr Peters' support would be a blow for the Government.

It wants to be able to claim it has broad parliamentary support for it to take place. Mr Peters said yesterday the Government had made little progress on the issue in six months and NZ First wanted to put its own stake in the ground.

He is turning his guns on the Waitangi Tribunal, which he claims is not impartial, and the wider claims process. He plans to reveal the details in a policy announcement and private member's bill next week.

He signalled his policy intentions and concerns about the Government's slow progress in a speech to Greypower groups yesterday.

Prime Minister Helen Clark took a benign approach to the speech saying Mr Peters had been "supportive of dialogue about the treaty".

"I remain supportive of that and also some stocktake of where the treaty is up to in the constitutional arrangements of New Zealand. I am not too far off making announcements about that.

"I think he is telegraphing his interest in the whole issue."

But Mr Peters said his support for the inquiry was not guaranteed.

"We don't know what they are inquiring into at this point in time. We don't know who is doing the inquiry so we are reserving our judgment on that. What we are not reserving is our position. We want to state it very clearly and next week we will."

National leader Don Brash said inquiry plans had hit a snag. "Surely the Prime Minister must have been expecting to be knee-capped by one or more of the fringe parties."

National had always believed the inquiry was designed as a race relations distraction and was unnecessary, he said.

Mr Peters said the treaty began as a statement of noble intent, but was "now casting a sinister shadow over the land of the long white cloud".

Over the past 20 years it had mutated as a result of "political interference, brown radicalism and judicial activism" and was now dividing the nation.

The treaty industry had become a bottomless pit, which would never be satisfied, he said.

NZ First was not satisfied with either the treaty claims process "or the Waitangi Tribunal as it is now constituted".

"It has gone way past its prescribed jurisdiction as an impartial body making recommendations on behalf of Maori.

"Waitangi Tribunal reports are now full of psycho-babble, mysticism and mythology."

Instead of solving the treaty industry problem, the tribunal was contributing to it, he said. "The day is coming when it will all stop."