Is the Maori Party looking at the big picture? 

Source: ONE NewsIndustry, emissions

As far as the public's concerned, Hone Harawira is the Maori Party's biggest political management problem at the moment. But the party's facing a bigger, more important decision at the moment than whether the MP for Te Tai Tokerau should stay or go. It's deciding whether it should vote yes or no on the government's reforms to the emissions trading scheme, and what we know of the negotiations so far raise questions about the minor party's interests.

Blogger Claire Browning put it well on Pundit: "The Maori Party's dilemma raises really interesting questions about whether a party with such a discrete constituency is justified in a blinkered focus on those interests, or has some moral obligation to keep an eye on the wider public interest."

The government's proposed changes to the emissions trading scheme (ETS) are regressive and unfair. National wants to ram through their reforms regardless of the fact that it moves the onus of paying for greenhouse gas emissions from business and farmers onto ordinary taxpayers and the household power bill. Big business carries on with carbon, Kiwi battlers pay. Even with extra concessions farmers lack the grace to say thank you and continue to whine. Sadly, National MPs arent for turning. They can't get their way, however, without the Maori Party's votes.

While negotiations have happened behind closed doors, there have been reports of the Maori Party pushing for insulation for homes owned by Maori - or in areas with high Maori populations - and special iwi access to planting forests on marginal conservation land. The government has been forced to put out fires, arguing they will not sign off on race-based concessions.

Just as Labour has always pushed the interests of workers and National has sided with business, it's right and proper for the Maori Party to seek policy gains for its people in the normal push and shove of coalition politics. They have a mandate for that. The Emissions Trading Scheme, however, is bigger than the normal politics.

As United Future's Peter Dunne has said, "Frankly, this issue is bigger than party egos", so the Maori Party's approach thus far has been disappointing.

Like Superannuation and ACC, the ETS is a hugely expensive, inter-generational policy; it's intended to transform our economy, preparing it for a post-carbon world and, in the big picture, save lives. Worldwide, more than 60 million people live within a metre of the sea, including thousands of our Pacific cousins, and anything we do to combat climate change should be done with them front of mind.

The best thing the Maori Party MPs can do is simply walk away. That now seems unlikely, so the next best thing for them to do is to at least argue for reforms that are in the interest of all New Zealanders both today and in 2050. Negotiating "sweetheart deals" on behalf of Treaty interests isn't enough this time.

Iwi too, must think beyond their own tribal interests when deciding what they hope to extract from the government in this deal. Those that negotiated early Treaty settlements, such as Ngai Tahu, are suggesting they could go to court to seek compensation if the impact of the ETS is to devalue their forestry interests. Under the ETS, cutting down trees will impose a cost. Some iwi were given forested land as part of their settlements even though they indicated during negotiations that they wanted to cut down the trees and convert the land to dairy farms. If they go ahead and cut down the trees under the new law, they could now incur a cost that wasn't part of the settlement. They say that's unfair.

In purely legal terms, they may have a case. But iwi aren't simply big corporates, as they often remind us. They have manawhenua and kaitiakitanga connections to the land; their focus is not purely on profits. Demanding hundreds of millions of dollars or special access to DoC land as compensation reeks of special treatment and looks as if they're seeking to gain at the expense of other New Zealanders.

They may argue that farmers and factory polluters have protected their profits at the expense of you and me, so why shouldn't they? My hope is that iwi are better corporate citizens.

Introducing a price on carbon is for the benefit of us all and our children to come, but we all have to pay a price. Iwi should accept their medicine for the greater good. We hardly need more dirty dairy; what we need from this ETS is incentives for all New Zelanders to plant more trees, not incentives that apply only to iwi.

Treaty settlements - the means by which they came to own those forests once again - were political deals and rest on the political goodwill of both Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. Here's hoping they remember that in these negotiations. And here's hoping the Maori Party are in there fighting for us all.