Brash attacks country's 'drift towards separatism'

By AUDREY YOUNG, political editor

New National Party leader Don Brash last night launched a fresh offensive against what he called "a dangerous drift to racial separatism" and "corruption" under the Treaty of Waitangi and the Government's foreshore proposals.

He accused Maori of using "standover tactics" for pecuniary gain and said that for 20 years "mischievous minds" had been interpreting the treaty in ways they envisaged would suit their financial purposes.

He claimed that the foreshore and seabed proposals unveiled last month would give Maori with customary title not only commercial development rights but a veto power over anyone else's development - a claim rejected by Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen.

Dr Brash's speech is his most important since he ousted Bill English as party leader in October.

It was immediately ridiculed by the Prime Minister, Helen Clark - after the National Party mistakenly emailed a copy of it to the office of Defence Minister Mark Burton.

She accused Dr Brash of being in "a tail-spin on the politics of race" and renewing Mr English's One Standard of Citizenship campaign, which had "failed spectacularly".

National's sole Maori MP, Georgina te Heuheu, would not criticise her leader's speech.

She said his credibility was "on the line", not hers, and he was entitled to show people what sort of Prime Minister he would be.

Dr Brash said the treaty had been "wrenched out of the 1840s context and become the plaything of those who would divide New Zealand from one another, not unite us".

And large amounts of education and health funding were influenced by the ethnicity of the recipient.

Dr Brash said the Prime Minister had refused to allow a grace to be said at a state dinner yet "we fly Maori elders around the world to lift tapu and expel evil spirits from New Zealand embassies".

"We allow courts to become entangled in hearings about the risks to taniwha of a new road or building.

"We are becoming a society that allows people to invent or rediscover beliefs for pecuniary gain.

"This process is becoming deeply corrupt, with some requirements for consultation resulting in substantial payments in a system that looks like nothing other than standover tactics."

He said spiritual beliefs were important in any society and should never be mocked. "But personal spiritual belief should not be allowed to drive our development as a modern society."

Dr Brash said that under the foreshore proposals Maori would have a more dominant role than other New Zealanders in the use and development of the coastline.

Under 16 regional bureaucracies to be set up with taxpayer funding, "Maori will gain access to even more taxpayer funds for consultants, lawyers and hui to ... take part in this process".

Maori would also be owners, managers and regulators, creating huge conflicts and interest, "and they will inevitably invite corruption".

Dr Brash alluded to Mr English's One Standard of Citizenship campaign, asking if New Zealand was to be a society "with the essential notion of one rule for all in a single nation state or is it the racially divided nation with two sets of laws and two standards of citizenship that the present Labour Government is moving us towards?"

He said National would:

* Remove references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi from legislation.

* Abolish the Maori seats.

* End Maori wards in local authority elections.

* Repeal the Government's foreshore law to return to the status quo and revoke any customary title awarded under the proposed law.

* Remove obligations of local government to specially consult Maori.

* Disallow raced-based Government funding and review the Ministry of Maori Development, Te Puni Kokiri.

Helen Clark, mocking Dr Brash at her post-Cabinet press conference yesterday, said: "I wonder what the Orewa Rotary had done to deserve this speech."

She said there were too many parties on the right of New Zealand politics chasing too few votes on an anti-Maori, anti-treaty-settlement vote.

She said political leaders had a duty to try "to bring people together, not drive them apart".

Dr Cullen, who is responsible for the foreshore policy, said Dr Brash was grossly misrepresenting the Government's policy and engaging in the politics of desperation.

Dr Cullen said "customary title" as proposed by the Government under statute law (at present it is recognised in common law) would recognise mana and ancestral connection. "It will not allow the development of a commercial activity, or a power of veto over new resource uses."

To achieve that, iwi, hapu and whanau would have to establish before the Maori Land Court that they had customary rights - communally held property rights.

"[Customary rights] will be specific in nature and any commercial development will be restricted to the volume of resource used for the customary usage and will be subject to normal regulatory control, including the Resource Management Act."

An elaborate foreshore policy was developed in response to a Court of Appeal decision last year which left open the possibility of the foreshore and seabed being declared Maori customary land.