Testosterone takes a breather at foreshore hearings

By RUTH BERRY

When a couple of protesters waved a "no confiscation" banner outside the window of the last day of the foreshore select committee hearings at Parliament yesterday, the blinds in the room were pulled.

"Can we have those shutters open?" Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia asked committee chairman Russell Fairbrother, who had ordered them pulled, pointedly.

Following a low grumble from the chair, it was established that the protesters had gone and the request was agreed to.

For Mrs Turia it was likely to have been an apt metaphor for the way the committee has approached Maori opposition to the foreshore bill.

For her committee cohort, Green MP Metiria Turei, it may have been an example of what she has referred to in her webpage diary on the hearings when she complained about the "utterly overwhelming testosteronal stench" on the committee.

For Mr Fairbrother and some other Government MPs on the committee, the banner was most likely viewed as another irritating example of the ill-informed position they believe many submitters have taken.

It was one example of the tensions that continued to define the hearings until the last day, when most submitters continued to stress their objections to the bill and call for the "longer conversation".

It was a call echoed by Tainui MP Nanaia Mahuta yesterday, whose presence as a submitter ensured a large media turn-out.

Amid ringing phones and many cameras, she outlined her hopes for a change in direction to enable Maori customary title to be recognised, sitting on top of the Crown's underlying or "radical" title.