A bill which would guarantee Ngāi Tahu two seats on future Environment Canterbury (ECan) councils is struggling to gain support in Parliament.
Labour says it is doing the numbers this week to see if it can get the apparently faltering Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill across the line for its first reading in the House.
However, the local bill will not get NZ First backing.
Neither is it likely to get the support that ECan chairman Steve Lowndes hoped would come from Canterbury National Party MPs, according to shadow leader of the House Gerry Brownlee.
I support guaranteed Māori representation on regional councils, but it must be democratic: elected and proportionate. ECan could have achieved that by choosing to have Māori wards under the Local Electoral Act. Instead, they chose to put forward a blatantly undemocratic proposal. It deserves to fail.