The Government and the Maori Party's dream run with their Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill is well and truly over.
Drafting legislation to replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act was never going to be easy, but when it at last reached Parl
The Government and the Maori Party's dream run with their Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill is well and truly over.
Drafting legislation to replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act was never going to be easy, but when it at last reached Parliament hardly anyone seemed to care.
It passed its first reading with a huge majority, backed by Labour and opposed only by the ACT Party and Hone Harawira. It seemed to have been grudgingly accepted by iwi and no one was taking much notice of Harawira because he was doing what he always does -- being a pain.
But throughout this process and mostly under the radar, concerns about the bill were starting to take shape.
Those concerns surfaced after Parliament passed the bill to the Maori affairs select committee which began holding public hearings around the country.
There is intense opposition to the bill from Maori, mainly because of the test for customary title to any part of the coastline -- uninterrupted use and occupation since 1840. The bar is high, and iwi know it. Harawira, their champion, says it will cut out 98 percent of potential applicants.
The Government always acknowledged that the test was very tough to meet, and it has never given any indication that it is prepared to modify it.
The Maori Party has got itself in a real bind over this. Co-leader Tariana Turia is on record as saying it will listen to the opinion of its constituents, and be guided by those opinions. She has also suggested it could be revisited at some future time.
Maori who have given evidence to the committee clearly don't want the bill to be enacted, and unless Turia and her pro-bill colleagues can show that isn't a majority view then they are going to have to back off their commitment to follow the will of their constituents.
ACT MP John Boscawen is a member of the committee hearing evidence on the bill. The party's Maori affairs spokeswoman, Hilary Calvert, has been attending hearings as well.
"Around the country the message is the same -- everyone, Maori and non-Maori, is vehemently opposed to this bill," they said last week.
"Members of Parliament have a duty to represent the views of the people who elected them. They cannot, in good conscience, continue to support legislation that submitter after submitter does not want passed into law."
They have a point, but it isn't one the Government and the Maori Party want to hear.
The latest event to destabilise the process of the bill was Labour's decision, announced last week, to withdraw its support.
Leader Phil Goff said his party no longer considered the legislation would deliver an enduring solution, citing Turia's comments about the possibility of it being revisited and the negative submissions to the select committee.
Goff has sized up the situation and decided Labour is better off sailing away from these stormy waters.
He has also almost certainly decided Labour can benefit by pulling out because it might be able to attract non-Maori voters, and maybe some Maori voters as well, who oppose the bill.
Labour's decision means the Government has a slender majority for progressing the bill in Parliament. National, four Maori Party MPs and Peter Dunne are backing it, a total of 63 votes. Labour, the Greens, the Progressive Party, Harawira and Chris Carter are opposing it, a total of 59 votes.
If two pro-bill MPs switched sides the count would be 61-61 and the bill wouldn't get any further.
That isn't likely to happen. No National MP will cross the floor over this. Mrs Turia, her co-leader Pita Sharples, and MPs Te Ururoa Flavell and Rahui Katene are staunch. Peter Dunne doesn't seem to have anything to gain by going against the Government.
The next important phase will be the Maori affairs select committee's report, which isn't likely to emerge until March or April next year.
It will have to explain the attitude of submitters, and it will have to decide what it thinks should happen to the bill.
It could recommend changes to the customary title test but the Government wouldn't buy that. It is already having problems with the more conservative elements within National who don't like the bill as it is.
At present, the Government's position, and that of the Maori Party, is to press on with the bill regardless of the opposition that is being expressed.
They have one point in their favour, and that is the consequences of taking the bill off the table. If that happened the Foreshore and Seabed Act would remain in force, and nothing would have been gained. The replacement legislation at least restores to Maori the right to seek customary title through the High Court or by negotiation with the Government, which the Foreshore and Seabed Act extinguished.
The Maori Party now seems destined to tell its constituents the bill is better than nothing, so it has to be passed.
It will all come to a head sometime in the second half of next year, dangerously close to the general election, and the Maori Party could suffer the consequences.
The Government will ride it out, this isn't such a big deal for National as it is for the Maori Party. ACT might pick up some votes, which is why it is making so much noise about the need to withdraw the bill, and it will present itself as the only party honest enough to do what voters want.
Labour, while seeking advantage from withdrawing support for the bill, has also given itself a potential headache by saying it will develop alternative legislation. That will be really interesting.
