KEY POINTS:
Pita Sharples let the cat out the bag on the Sky TV leaders' interviews last night.
He said he had "pinned down" National leader John Key privately and got him to agree that he would not get rid of the Maori seats without Maori consent.
"What he is saying publicly is that at the end of the claims, he is going to begin a democratic process of getting rid of the seats?
Question: Do you believe him?
Sharples: "I've pinned him down. I said you admit to me that you won't get rid of those seats until Maori people say yes, and he said that's what he would do."
It was always expected that National's policy would be knocked off the table in round one of any post-election negotiations between National and the Maori Party.
What we didn't know is that is has really been knocked off the table in private pre-election undertakings.
I asked Key's office for comment this morning and have just been texted back: "The comment is not right . John has not said that to Pita Sharples."
Key is in holding a lunchtime rally in Red Square in Tauranga and I'm off to the the Prefu lock-up shortly but I will try to get more on this for tomorrow's paper.
Sharples was the fourth leader to appear on the Bill Ralston hosted show on Sky, Campaign 08 [Channel 90, 8.30 pm and repeated on Prime later the same night.]
It was the second time I have been on the media panel. TV3's Duncan Garner and Radio Live' John Tamihere (the ex-MP Sharples beat last election) were fellow panellists.
What interested me most was the renewed push coming out of the Maori Party to become "the Treaty Partner" with either National or Labour, not a coalition partner.
It is not a new theme but it is being promoted heavily now in speeches and interviews from party president Whatarangi Winiata and co-leader Tariana Turia.
It is important because it would be a significant constitutional development should National or Labour recognise a political party as a treaty partner.
It would also, almost certainly, have major ramifications for the way government is conducted in New Zealand.
Partnership until now has been relegated to something close to consultation.
Being a "Treaty Partner" to the "Crown" would be more akin to co-government.
It not something the Maori Party would be able to advance with moral force unless it wins all seven Maori seats - it has four.
I think that is the reason the party has decided not to stand this time in the general seats as it did last election.
It will concentrate every ounce of energy and resource in the Maori seats.
Sharples said last night the party intended to again stand in the general seats in the election after next but this election it's all on for the Maori seats.
He and Turia have both said in the past week that they would expect National or Labour to acknowledge the party as "the treaty partner."
When I put it to Turia in an interview with her last week that setting the party up as such was saying that other parties did not represent Maori, her response was: "Well I don't think they do."
Chris Trotter has written some about the lack of clarity around what the Maori Party wants in a governance arrangement.
He has speculated that what the party could be aiming for is to constitute itself as a Maori Government within a Government.
It sounds extreme.
But the party cannot - or chooses not to- articulate where it is headed constitutionally.
And I could not help but be struck by the symbolism at the party's conference in Hamilton on Saturday of the two miniature flags on each of the delegates tables: a New Zealand flag [the Crown] and a Maori Party flag [the treaty partner].
Winiata told the conference: "We have often said we would want to find a treaty partner. One of the challenges is how to reconcile kawanatanga and tino rangatiratanga where both want to occupy the same space."
What that means remains to be seen.
