KEY POINTS:
A Maori parliament or council of elders is being flagged by Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres to improve consultations between Maori and the Crown.
He says the present system where government agencies hold numerous hui throughout the country to consult on every issue fails to give Maori
a collective voice and results in "consultation fatigue".
Key Maori leaders agreed consultation by hui was ineffective and wanted a unified Maori voice through mechanisms such as a Maori House of Parliament or a "council of elders and chiefs".
In his annual report on race relations, published yesterday, Mr de Bres said there was a need to "strengthen the relationship between central and local government and organisations representative of Maori".
He said local arrangements between city and district councils and their iwi worked well on details, but there was no effective mechanism for Maori to provide a "strategic" view to the Crown on broad issues such as immigration, education, health or the ownership of the foreshore and seabed.
"There is an issue, which the foreshore and seabed typified, that there isn't a place where discussions can take place without immediately falling into rhetoric without decisions, where the Crown can discuss issues with representatives of Maori in a manner that doesn't automatically involve taking positions and questions of autonomy of individual iwi and so on," he said. "I can't think of another situation where a relationship of this sort doesn't have some form of structural provision."
Overseas examples were the Sami parliaments that represent about 85,000 Sami people (Laplanders) in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland.
"In other countries, there are national councils," he said.
"I'm not suggesting that we draw a model from overseas at all. It could be a council of elders but I'm not suggesting a council of chiefs right now. I don't think there is one formula that we can pull from somewhere else.
"I am raising it as an issue that is for Maori to continue to discuss with Government."
The head of Maori and indigenous studies at Canterbury University, Rawiri Taonui, also suggested a "council of elders and chiefs" after a Maori King Movement hui hosted by Ngati Tuwharetoa near Tokaanu last November.
"The [existing] Maori Council doesn't work. Electorates don't fit tribal boundaries," Dr Taonui said.
He proposed a non-partisan council that could work with all political parties on issues such as Treaty of Waitangi claims, the new school curriculum and social problems.
Council chairman Sir Graham Latimer said the 17 district Maori councils were elected by local committees, but the council system had a total budget of only $200,000 a year and just one secretary, in Wellington.
He said Mr de Bres was also "quite correct in saying that huis lack substance in most cases" and there was a need for better communication.
Federation of Maori Authorities chief executive Paul Morgan said his group co-ordinated input to the Crown on economic issues but not on other social and political issues.
Ngati Whatua chief executive Tiwana Tibble said iwi authorities had recently formed a "CEO forum", but it was mainly to "share ideas about how we do things in our respective areas and work out how to do things better".
