Govt hui divisive says Morrison

By HELEN TUNNAH deputy political editor

Veteran entertainer Sir Howard Morrison has labelled the Government's seabed and foreshore hui divisive and predicts Friday's final meeting at Orakei marae will be upset by protests.

Sir Howard said it would have been better for the "mountains of Maoridom" to go to Parliament to make sure their voices were heard by Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Helen Clark has not attended any of the Government's consultation hui on its proposals to stop Maori being granted ownership of the seabed and foreshore.

Sir Howard used a speech to the inaugural conference of Labour's coalition partner, the Progressive Coalition, to criticise the Government handpicking of marae for its hui and the use of Wira Gardiner as chairman. The speech was also a veiled criticism of Helen Clark for not going to the huis.

His remarks are potentially embarrassing for the Labour-led Government, which has tried to portray opponents as extremists.

"I and we, Te Arawa, felt it would probably be more prudent seeing as Helen Clark was not going to these briefings on marae, it would have been much better for her to have called a hui taumata in Wellington," Sir Howard said.

"Taumata is the absolute ultimate, where people of reason, intelligence, tolerance and commitment would gather, so the mountains of Maoridom would go to the legislative chambers of Parliament and debate the issue.

"Then the Prime Minister would be there.

"Because all these hui are doing is further dividing New Zealand."

Sir Howard, a member of Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition party, said the use of Mr Gardiner as hui chairman had been a "blunder" and a "direct insult to the tangata whenua of those marae".

One of the Government's hui was called off in Whangarei last week after opponents said they would block Mr Gardiner's and the Crown's access to the marae.

Mr Gardiner's had been unwelcome after giving court evidence supporting the building of a prison on a Northland site considered sacred by local Maori.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen said afterwards the Government would not "retreat" in the face of protests from "a small minority", but Sir Howard said on Saturday the Crown should.

"Michael Cullen says hui protests won't force [the] Government into retreat. I say retreat.

"Ask the leaders, get them to show some responsibility of picking the people from their own iwi to go down to Wellington and talk to the Government."

Maori have rejected the proposals at a series of Government-organised consultation hui, which are due to end at Orakei marae on Friday.

"With my due apologies to Ngati Whatua, I predict that there is going to be a very, very strong protest that probably will turn it upside down," Sir Howard said.

"There is a lot of angst in Maori that the Government deemed which marae they would go to, so they've invited themselves to the marae."

He said the reverse protocol should have applied.