Debate continues on the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill tonight but opponents do not have the numbers to stop it passing.
The bill repeals the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act - which prompted a 20,000-strong hikoi - and replaces it with legislation that restores to Maori the right to seek customary title to parts of the coastline through the High Court or by negotiation with the Government.
However many Maori say the bill is unfair and the test to prove customary title is too difficult. Opposition to the bill prompted Hone Harawira to leave the Maori Party, which backs it.
The hikoi against the bill left Cape Reinga on March 14 and arrived to a cool and wet Wellington afternoon bearing placards accusing the Government of land theft and the Maori Party of betrayal.
After tears, songs and speeches the group held a ceremony where they laid the Maori Party and New Zealand flags on the ground, then used them to wrap up leafy headdresses along with copies of the old and new foreshore legislation and a report into turbine proposals for Kaipara.
Mr Harawira said the gesture meant the hikoi was handing back the pain the Government had caused.
The minister in charge of the bill, Attorney-General Chris Finlayson, the Maori Party's Tariana Turia, Te Ururoa Flavell, and Rahui Katene, Green co-leader Metiria Turei, as well as Maori MPs from other parties, gathered on the forecourt.
National MP Tau Henare picked up the bundle, remarking under his breath that he was going to go and throw it "in the ****ing bin", but later said that was a joke and he was keeping it in his office.
Mr Harawira was unimpressed by the remark; "Tau Henare is not noted for being a particularly intelligent individual".
When asked what he got out of the event Mr Finlayson said "wet".
That prompted Mr Harawira to say that was all that Mr Finlayson was capable of feeling because of his lack of knowledge of Maori custom.
Mr Finlayson said the hikoi had not changed his mind but he respected the group for speaking out.
"It won't make any difference to the passage of the bill, I thought it was very respectful, it was very small."
Prime Minister John Key also remarked on the numbers.
"Just shows you the issue doesn't have the heat it did back in 2004 when there were tens of thousands of people. They're free to protest, but at the end of the day it's a small group."
Mr Harawira said he found the ceremony "hugely" moving and the smallness of the hikoi was not about the level of support for the bill.
"Given that so many of the people here today were originally members of the first hikoi and members of the Maori Party, I think it's hard for them to actually do that against their own party."
Mrs Turia said she agreed with a lot the group had to say.
"What we are finding is that these people who are out there in fact don't believe the Government has any legitimacy to govern over this country, over their lands, over their foreshore and seabed.
"What we've decided as a political movement is that we've come into Parliament because we want to participate in this process to make the changes, incremental as they might be, and that's where the difference is."
The legislation could be revisited.
"Every piece of legislation can be revisited, that's not an unusual thing in the parliamentary process," Mrs Turia said.
The party would talk to its people about how to go forward.
She said she had no response to criticisms of her party; "you just have to accept that that's how those people felt."
