Monday 14 June 2010

is that it?

i've been following the hourly news updates all day regarding the proposed foreshore & seabed legislation. i haven't read much about it, but from what i've heard, the maori party have agreed to the national party proposal to have the foreshore & seabed in the public domain.

i'm way outside my area of expertise here, and am happy to be corrected if i got it wrong. but this seems to me to be the exact proposal on the table before the original foreshore & seabed legislation was passed. the way the numbers were falling, the then labour-led government could have gotten legislation through with the support of united future, which had the public domain option.

but that option didn't go through, because tariana turia walked. this meant that the numbers were short and labour had to go with nz first in order to get any legislation through. the result was legislation that was worse for maori than it would have been had ms turia stayed put.

so after all this time, and all her efforts in setting up the maori party and fighting on this issue, is she settling for the same deal that she turned her back on when in the labour party? is that really where it's at?

as i say, i'm happy to be corrected if i've got it wrong. but if i haven't, then i'm very disappointed at how this has turned out.

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