The Government's open to legislating to over-rule court decisions on incorporating tikanga Māori.

That's from the Prime Minister - echoing comments last week from his Justice Minister. 

Paul Goldsmith claimed at a Law Association meeting that including concepts of Māori customs and values in law could cost the country investment.

Former Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson says the Law Commission had been doing a substantial amount of work on tikanga.

"I would have thought that what the Crown should be doing is taking a good look at that report and trying to provide some definition of where and when tikanga would apply. So there's no point in just having a sort of group lamentation about it, it's within the ability of Parliament to knuckle down and do something about it."

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