Maori land bill upsets Harawira

Hone Harawira is ‘‘scared’’ the biggest Maori land reforms in decades could go through without the majority of Maori having a clue what they do.

The Mana leader, who has been given a clear run by the Maori Party in the Te Tai Tokerau seat at this year’s election, cannot get his head around the Ture Whenua bill and says on that basis he can guarantee ‘‘99.9 per cent of the people of my electorate haven’t even read it’’.

Maori Party co-leader and Maori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell, once a fierce rival of Harawira, is driving the bill through Parliament and agreed to sit down with his former opponent after Harawira dismissed the reforms as a ‘‘poisonous and destructive cancer’’.

‘‘To assume a bill that is 400 pages long and gone through more than 200 changes should be just accepted on the basis of one minister saying ’it’s all right I’ve got this sorted’ is clearly not acceptable,’’ Harawira said.

The pair met last week and while Harawira wasn’t impressed with the food at the meeting, he did leave agreeing that some aspects of the bill were worthwhile.

But on the whole the two parties, locked in an agreement to help each other win back the Maori seats from Labour, fundamentally disagree on most of the reforms. ’’The most destructive aspect continues to remain, which is nobody’s even read the bill,’’ Harawira said.

‘‘More so than anything else, legislation on Maori land reform, and nobody knows what’s in it – that’s hugely scary.

‘‘For that reason I still think it should be stopped,’’ he said.

‘‘The minister has put a lot of effort in, I don’t doubt that . . . it doesn’t make him right though.’’

While Harawira said he supports the bill’s intention to try to protect Maori land from being taken under the Public Works Act and getting access for Maori landowners to landlocked properties, he is still waiting for an explanation on what the Maori Land Service – a ‘‘key element of the bill’’ – will do.

Harawira said Flavell couldn’t explain the role of the Maori Land Service – ’’and his officials couldn’t either for that matter’’.

‘‘They said there are certain things in place but it’s a work in progress – that’s scary.’’

Flavell agrees the Maori Land Service is a work in progress but says the bill is the base for it and the building of the service is well under way.

More than 130 hui were held and more than 3000 people turned up – and that was in addition to the select committee process, Flavell said.

Between hui and workshops he said the bill’s had more consultation than anything else in his time in Parliament.

‘‘This isn’t about just pleasing Hone and the Mana Party.

‘‘It’s about ensuring we’re going to honour the discussion from all those hui and the submitters over time and I think we’ve done that.’’

Harawira has asked Flavell to consider putting forward an omnibus bill, which Mana would support, that pushes ahead with the parts they agree with and allows more consultation on the aspects that are less clear.

Flavell says he will consider that option but when Harawira initially criticised the bill he hadn’t even read it so he wasn’t in a position to offer any ‘‘credible criticism’’.

‘‘I couldn’t have done any better because of the conditions set on me by the Cabinet that you’ve got to follow certain protocols and I followed those protocols and got [the bill] out for public consultation as soon as I could afterwards.

‘‘That’s just an unfortunate consequence,’’ Flavell said.