John Roughan: Turkeys are big news in silly season

The new foreshore and seabed bill could prove to be the biggest story of the summer as the Act Party and Coastal Coalition propagate dire interpretations of the law. Photo / Supplied

Two weeks to Christmas and my festive season is over. It started two weeks ago.

Just about every day since has seen a convivial lunch or evening drinks and there have been a couple of parties. But after tonight, nothing.

Every year this happens. Every organisation schedules its Christmas celebration early so it doesn't "clash" - which means there is every chance of a clash in the first two weeks of December. Then there is a drought.

What am I supposed to do for the next two weeks? I've spread the cheer, wished everyone the merriest of Christmas. I'm ready for Santa, the turkey and the season of silly news.

Actually that season has started prematurely, too. On Sunday a struggling newspaper filled its front page with the prophesied second coming of Winston Peters.

On the strength of a 2 per cent rise in a poll, putting his party just above the threshhold for an MMP allocation, the Sunday Star Times decided he could be the kingmaker next year.

Peters, of course, was happy to entertain this prospect, with that coy solemnity he always adopted when he didn't know which way the wind would blow. That makes him an ideal subject for the silly season. A phone call on a slow day is bound to produce a "won't rule out" story.

In fact there is rarely a second life in politics, particularly when you have been exposed as Peters was at the end. Even politicians with integrity find that when the public has seen their rise and fall it doesn't want a sequel. Ask Don Brash.

He and Peters are fishing in the same water at the moment. They suspect the National-Maori bill on the foreshore and seabed is about to blow up in the Government's face.

The bill could be the biggest story of the summer. Then again, it could turn out to be another subject that would not run to a sequel.

The Labour Party deserted the bill this week to watch which way the wind blows. Its pretext is right - a coastal property right should be awarded only by a court, not negotiated with a government - but Labour is in no position to say so.

The Act Party and Muriel Newman's Coastal Coalition have been propagating dire interpretations of the bill for a while now and one National MP, Tamaki's Alan Peachey, believes their campaign is costing National votes.

Act's John Boscowan held a public meeting on the issue in the Tamaki Yacht Club on Monday night. My friend, Susan Healy, was there. She estimated there were about 40 people present. Most would have been over 70, she said.

"Those who spoke at some length and with varying measures of rancour were elderly men."

She was "initially surprised at the objective and reasonably fair way John Boscowan set out the history behind the Foreshore and Seabed Act and the Marine and Coastal Area Bill.

"However, there were subtle ways in which he conveyed (not too accurately) that there are already cases where Maori or iwi have made enormous gains, notably in the Marlborough area.

"What concerned me was that Maori and iwi were always portrayed as a threat and nothing was said about partnerships that are working."

She pointed out that there is a precursor of customary title functioning in Auckland, at Okahu Bay. There the public is welcome. As the late Sir Hugh Kawharu once explained to the Herald, title confers mana and "mana allows, indeed requires, sharing".

In a previous column I argued that to compromise public access to the coast was "dangerous" but added that was no reason not to do it with care. The danger that confusion could cause conflict arises mainly from the bill's provision to restrict entry to sites considered sacred, wahi tapu.

A staffer for Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson says wahi tapu sites will need to be defined at the time a customary title is awarded. Title holders would not subsequently be able to declare an area off limits.

Finlayson is a refreshing minister. He told the Taipa squatters they could "go to hell" if they thought he would talk to illegal occupiers of beachfront land. He says he will go anywhere this summer to counter the misapprehensions put about by Mrs Newman's "clowns".

Meanwhile, Maori are having a different debate. Some, such as Hone Harawira, would prefer to retain a bad law than get a better one - they think the grievance is more use to them than a deal now.

They are hoping for more than they got in the Court of Appeal decision that started this saga. They must be having an early Christmas, too.