The Maori Party's peaceful relationship with the government has been restored, with neither side gaining any clear concession or advantage.

One thing was obvious after the talks between the party's co-leaders and Prime Minister John Key on Wednesday night - they both wanted to defuse the water rights issue and remove uncertainty over the future of their support agreement.

Those aims were achieved in ways which don't seem to have changed anything in any substantial way.

Key's comment that the government doesn't have to take any notice of Waitangi Tribunal reports, which Sharples and Turia had described as an insult to all Maori, has now been accepted by them as "merely a reiteration of current law".

That's what Key always said it was, and the only change on that issue has been an agreement to discuss the tribunal report when it is released.

If, as expected, the tribunal rules in the Maori Council's favour and says the partial privatisation of four state-owned energy companies should be put on hold, the discussion will take place and then the government will ignore the report.

Key didn't have to give away anything to clear that up.

The next issue is the one the Maori Party says was really important, although it wasn't known to the media until after the meeting and caused some initial confusion.

Key has agreed not to extinguish Maori water rights through legislation.

The Maori Party says its real concern was to gain assurance there won't be another version of the previous government's Foreshore and Seabed Act, which removed any possibility of Maori holding freehold title to beaches.

Key was on safe ground when he gave that assurance.

Maori water rights haven't been resolved - the very point of the Maori Council's application to the tribunal which asks that asset sales be delayed until they are.

The Maori Party put up a hypothetical situation which this government almost certainly won't have to deal with.

It will take years, probably decades, to work through claims. The possibility of a court ruling giving Maori water rights which the government can't countenance are remote.

The government's way of dealing with claims doesn't involve seeking any sort of pan-Maori agreement on water rights, which would probably be impossible to achieve given the vested interests of numerous claimants.

It is dealing with the Iwi Leaders Group and discussing water rights on a case-by-case basis.

This is working, an example being Tainui's role in co-management of the Waikato River which was agreed with hardly a ripple of public discontent.

It is the way the government sees the future, and the Maori Party agrees with it.

That was confirmed in the joint statement issued after the meeting: "The Maori Party and the government continue to support a process of negotiation between hapu and iwi and the government on their rights and interests in water."

The joint statement also noted: "This debate is not about ownership."

That was almost certainly at Key's insistence. His position has always been that no one owns water and Maori never will. The Maori Party has conceded it isn't going to push that particular issue.

Sharples and Turia are claiming victory over the government, hoping to silence their critics who called on them to pull out of their support agreement.