Top Government team to meet Tainui over Mahuta impasse

By RUTH BERRY, political reporter

A high-powered team of Government ministers will meet the Tainui executive today in a last-ditch bid to force Nanaia Mahuta to support the foreshore bill.

Former long-time Labour MP and Tainui executive member Koro Wetere is set to throw his weight behind the Government, represented by Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen, Treaty Negotiations Minister Margaret Wilson and Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia.

It is unlikely the Tainui MP will change her plan to cross the floor on the issue, but the Government will be hoping to get enough support to suggest Tainui's leadership is more divided than has been claimed.

The bargaining chip will be the west coast harbours and the Waikato River.

Tainui's claim to Kawhia, Aotea, Raglan and Manukau Harbours and the river were excluded by a $170 million settlement it negotiated in 1995.

The tribe wants to know how the Government's policy of vesting foreshore in the Crown will affect its claim.

Beehive sources have suggested that the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, is unhappy with Ms Mahuta's opposition to the bill.

Dame Te Ata is not expected to be at the meeting, but will be represented by Lady Raiha, Ms Mahuta's mother.

Ms Mahuta, who will be at a hui in Hauraki today, said yesterday that Dame Te Ata "has not taken a political position on this and that's not the nature of her office".

However, marae representatives at hui in Maniapoto, Hauraki and Waikato over the parliamentary recess had supported her opposition to the policy, she said.

"Today I have finished a hui with Raukawa with Tariana Turia and I have got a similar resolution to support our stance."

She hinted that the Beehive rumour could reflect the Government's desperation to suggest "conservative" Maori supported the bill.

Mr Wetere - a self-described "gold card-carrying" Labour Party member - said he was advising Ms Mahuta to support the introduction of the bill and reserve her final vote until the ultimate shape of the legislation was clear.

"Nobody knows what's going to be in the third reading of the bill.

"I've told her, 'Why go and pre-empt her career? Wait until it's complete'."

Mr Wetere said he was expressing the view of a number of senior Tainui members, but could not speak for Dame Te Ata.

"We respect her position. We would not implicate her politically."

The executive wanted to hold preliminary discussions over the settlement of the harbours claim and any impact the foreshore legislation might have on those negotiations, Mr Wetere said.

Ms Mahuta and Te Tai Hauauru MP Mrs Turia are the only Labour MPs left who have refused to support the policy.

Their Maori caucus colleagues are also busy holding hui, desperate to increase support in the lead-up to the bill's first reading the week after next.

The pair will be forced to take a stand at next week's party caucus meeting or, at the latest, when the bill is read.