Cullen to be PM's man at seabed talks

By RUTH BERRY political reporter

Prime Minister Helen Clark is not planning to attend any of the Government's foreshore and seabed consultation hui, leaving Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen to take the hits instead.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard will step in for Dr Cullen for some of the hui, including the first two this week, while Dr Cullen attends an Apec finance ministers' meeting in Thailand.

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia is expected to attend all the hui, although he was on crutches last week and experiencing excruciating pain from gout.

Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere and Treaty Negotiations Minister Margaret Wilson will back up the two ministers at most of the 11 meetings and local MPs will join them.

Helen Clark has fronted a series of bridge-building hui run by the Government in the past year, but a spokesman said yesterday that she had a busy schedule over the next three weeks.

She has been under Opposition fire for failing to front the issue in the House and some iwi and hapu may consider her absence to be adding insult to injury.

But Helen Clark believes the political risks associated with attending the hui, which are being compared to the watershed fiscal envelope hui, outweigh the benefits.

She has been downplaying some of the sentiments emanating from national Maori hui on the issue and her spokesman yesterday reiterated that "the Government does not accept the Maori sovereignty agenda as put forward by some people".

Some Beehive sources say that agenda is being actively supported by Associate Maori Affairs Minister Tariana Turia, whose links with some key constitutional-change advocates over the foreshore issue have been too close for the comfort of senior ministers, including the Prime Minister.

Also of concern for the Government this week may be Opposition attempts to try to use comments made by retired Maori Land Court judge Heta Hingston at the hui to suggest the court is biased.

Act MP Stephen Franks has already tried to attack the court, which is about to have its powers expanded to hear foreshore and seabed claims.

He described at least one judge as an activist and suggested that Chief Judge Joe Williams was compromised by his role as deputy chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Judge Hingston was the judge who opened the way for Maori to establish customary title over the foreshore in a 1997 ruling that has now been vindicated by the Court of Appeal.

He launched an attack on the Government at the hui, saying he took "great umbrage" at the way it was going to take away customary rights.

"A lot of our people, including our MPs, don't really understand what this is about. There is a view across the country that Maori are wanting something more. It's wrong. These rights belong to us."

Helen Clark's spokesman said it was not surprising Judge Hingston would defend his own judgment.

"We don't think it is normal for judges to enter the political arena, but that's a matter for their own judgment."