It looks as if whether to have a referendum on the Maori electorates will become a defining issue in the post-election negotiations.

With 46 percent support, National could form a government with NZ First that could look beyond paternalistic policies intended to “improve the lot of Maori”.

The policies of Labour’s new leader Jacinda Ardern on Maori seats and a water tax should send a chill through Hobson’s Pledge supporters.

The 2017 election campaign has well and truly started with both the Green Party and New Zealand First launching major policie.

Hobson’s Pledge spokespersons Don Brash and Casey Costello will discuss the Palmerston North City Council’s Maori ward proposal at a meeting tonight at the Palmerston North Library.

Those who signed the Treaty of Waitangi would struggle to understand why an undefined and divisive term “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” came to be inserted in our legislation, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said at Waitangi.

A fracas between Mr Peters and Te Tii marae members on February 5 eclipsed a detailed speech he gave at the stone church in Paihia on February 3 in which he slammed legal chaos with activist judges, bureaucratic meddlers, treaty lawyers and a “Treaty Industry”.

We’ve reached the limits of what Government can do, the limits of Government grants and programmes, Prime Minister Bill English told Ratana members on Monday.

He was attending annual commemorations at the group’s settlement south of Wanganui. The event kicks off the political year.

New Zealand First voted against three Taranaki treaty settlement bills, last Wednesday, because they will force the Taranaki Regional Council to appoint six iwi members, three on the policy and planning committee, and three on the regulatory functions committee.

Parliament sat through extended sitting hours to pass the Ngaruahine, Te Atiawa and Taranaki Iwi Claims Settlement Bills through their third readings.