Maori groups awarded customary title in the foreshore and seabed will be the legal owners of it and the minerals beneath it.

The Maori Party's often controversial MP Hone Harawira says the Prime Minister was "pandering to rednecks" over the foreshore and seabed deal.

The Govt will introduce a new property title that can be claimed over the foreshore and seabed.

National has relaxed the threshold for claiming customary title but the iwi leaders want it relaxed even further.

A Ngapuhi leader is calling for a nine per cent economic development tax to be levied on everyone living inside the iwi's boundary.

As the Waitangi Tribunal prepares to issues its recommendations on the most far-reaching claim yet, an improved ability to talk through our different viewpoints will be critical.

Maori will refuse to forgo their rights to the foreshore and seabed unless private owners do the same, an iwi leaders' group has warned.

A leading Maori journalist is threatening to walk away from TVNZ if proposals to revamp the Maori-focused current affairs show Marae go ahead, insiders say.

Merata Mita, a co-producer of the hit NZ film Boy and a recipient of the NZ Order of Merit, has died in Auckland today.

The Department of Internal Affairs has apologised to a mother after it admitted failing to uphold the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in dealing with her.

"At the drop of a hat and for the clinking of some dollars, we'll turn on a powhiri for Mickey and Minnie," complains Labour MP Shane Jones.

Tuhoe are holding emergency hui to discuss John Key's announcement that iwi ownership of the Urewera National Park is off the negotiating table.

The 2007 'anti-terror raids' reaffirmed old suspicions and helped quicken the enthusiasm for a "Tuhoe Nation", writes historian Paul Moon.