KEY POINTS:
Seldom has Parliament turned on such a display of multi-party posturing as that seen when National told the Maori Party it would not support repeal of Labour's Foreshore and Seabed Act. National's leader, John Key, said his party would not support a repeal bill even so far as
a select committee hearing, and he did not think he had ever indicated he might. Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said this was "incredibly disappointing", adding, "This [National] is a party that's gone around the country talking about one law for all ... and yet on this particular issue they are prepared to treat us differently".
Labour's Maori MPs feigned fine disgust at their rivals' failure. "The kaupapa that brought them to Parliament has been smashed at the feet of the potential coalition partners, National," said Shane Jones. Added Dover Samuels: "It's the biggest fraud on the Maori nation since the non-implementation of the Treaty of Waitangi."
Not a single Maori elector could have cast a vote for the Maori Party believing it had any chance of repealing the legislation Labour devised after the Court of Appeal opened the door to customary Maori claims to the coast. They intended to rebuke Labour, and particularly its Maori MPs, for closing the door, and may even have hoped the loss of four seats would prompt Labour to revisit the issue. If so, they have been disappointed.
The Maori Party, meanwhile, has done as much as a party with only four seats can do, having put forward a private member's bill and lobbied others for support. But it cannot seriously have believed it had found common cause with National. The two parties gave diametrically opposite reasons for opposing the foreshore legislation. The Maori Party maintains it has trampled on a Maori right; National said the act did not go far enough to protect public ownership.
Both arguments are partly right. The act has not removed the possibility that courts may recognise a continuing customary right to an area of foreshore and seabed. It has even provided a category of statutory recognition that claimants could not exercise directly but for which they may be compensated. These rights may be "merely academic" but that makes them easier for a court to confirm that would be the case if they could be put into effect. And once they are recognised in this way, the case for giving them real effect becomes stronger.
For the present, though, no party seems anxious to revisit a tired subject. Not even the Maori Party. It has been too quick to treat National's declaration as the death knell of its founding cause. It could have continued to campaign against the odds if it believed its political future depended on it. It plainly does not. If the party can capture more Maori electorates next year, it will do so on perceptions of the value of an independent voice, not an exhausted issue that seems to have receded in Maori concern since the party came to Parliament.
The party has given Maori a stronger presence on the political scene. Labour MPs in Maori seats must be very worried. List MPs such as Mr Jones will survive if Maori continue to split their electorate and party votes. If their party vote remains heavily with Labour, it will be difficult for the Maori Party to contemplate any post-election deal with National. But the party is tactically wise not to rule it out, and Labour MPs are unwise to rub it in. The more they accuse the Maori Party of treating with the enemy, the more Maori voters might get used to the idea. It is called independent politics.