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Labour and the Greens are gearing up for a fight over how Te Ture Whenua Maori Bill will go through its next stage.
Ikaroa Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri says the Maori Party and National will want the 400-page bill debated as a whole in the committee stage, so they can get the Maori land law reform passed before the election.
Opposition parties want to debate each of its 16 parts separately.
She says the more people see of the bill the more concerned they are about the shift in purpose from protection of Maori land to utilisation, and the mechanisms introduced to achieve that.
"It introduces a whole lot of administrative titles or positions. There's a kaiwhakamarumaru, a kaiwhakarite, there's a kai… so people who don't have any governance around their land on their own decisions will now get appointed somebody to run their land," Ms Whaitiri says.
There is still no clarity about the proposed Maori Land Service which is supposed to take over administrative functions of the Maori Land Court, and there is widespread concern about the transfer of Maori land records to Land Information New Zealand.
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