Rebuke silences National party forum

By HELEN TUNNAH

As National's Treaty of Waitangi forum neared its end, long-time Maori party member Hikurangi Cherrington made his way to the microphone.

He was tired, he said, of going to National conferences and "year after year after year after year" listening to Maori-bashing.

"It disappoints me," he said, his simplicity increasing the impact of his words. "It is only when Maori are placed on the list we will know how seriously National takes Maori."

And in a mild rebuke for the party, Mr Cherrington said it was time it got simple things right - such as having the powhiri at the start, not on the second day.

He added it had been disappointing for Ngapuhi elders at the powhiri that party leader Don Brash was not there. He would have been offered an apology for the mud slung at him in February by a protester just a few hundred metres down the road at Waitangi.

Mr Cherrington's quiet comments stilled the conference room, until deputy leader and Maori Affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee thanked him. "We don't want you to feel like that," Mr Brownlee offered.

Delegates at National's northern regional conference had heard speakers attack the existence of the Maori seats and having a Maori Affairs minister and praise Dr Brash's landmark speech in which he warned of a dangerous drift to racial separatism because of special Government programmes for Maori.

Later, Mr Cherrington, a Hokianga farmer and party member since 1967, said he still supported National.

"I've always felt that they were a party that could do well for Maori and I still have that belief."

He said members of his family felt National had gone "overboard" on some issues, and he feared the Orewa speech had worsened racial tensions.

"I get disappointed in some of the things that are said about Maoridom, because my feeling is 80 to 90 per cent of Maoridom are pretty level-minded, thinking people."