TREE TALK: Labour MP David Cunliffe has offered to climb the kauri tree in his electorate to save it from being cut down.

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe has offered to climb a kauri tree under threat of being felled in Auckland.

Protester Michael Tavares has been perched 25 metres up the 500-year-old kauri, in the western suburb of Titirangi, since Monday morning when it was due to be felled, and said his presence was all that was stopping it being cut down.

In Parliament on Tuesday morning, politicians weighed in on the issue - but none as enthusiastically as Cunliffe.

FIONA GOODALL/GETTY IMAGES PROTEST: Michael Tavares sits high in the threatened kauri tree in Titirangi.

The kauri, and a 300-year-old rimu tree that is also due to be felled, are in the Labour MP's New Lynn electorate.

Cunliffe said he'd join Tavares on a branch in order to stop the tree being cut down, but none of his Labour Party colleagues appeared willing to join him.

Labour leader Andrew Little said he was "unlikely" to join Cunliffe up the tree as he "did not see a space in my diary".

"I would just caution David Cunliffe to be very careful," he said.

Asked what Cunliffe should be careful of, Little responded: "Falling out of the tree."

Little said he thought it was "tragic" that a native tree of that age was likely to be cut down.

"Some things ought to be preserved and conserved and I hope that a kauri tree that predates the nation - the European nation - would be one of those things that would be preserved," he said.

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Phil Twyford, Labour's associate spokesman for Auckland issues and for the environment, said he was happy to let Tavares do the job holding the fort in the "pretty handsome" kauri.

He suggested that perhaps Conservation Minister Maggie Barry should climb the tree instead.

"Having changed the law that basically takes away the ability of councils to practically protect the urban forest, I don't know what Maggie Barry could do at this point to save the tree," Twyford said.

He said millions of dollars had been spent by the Government fighting kauri dieback disease and "to allow our planning rules to make it easy for developers to knock over a 500 year-old kauri tree seems bizarre".

Barry said she was getting more information about the tree.

"The age of the tree is probably between 100-200 years old," she said.

"We are just looking at what the Council have approved, and what they haven't."

Asked if kauri trees should be cut down, Barry replied: "Of course not".

"As a general rule I don't want to see kauri cut down, we want to save them," she said.

"Kauri dieback is a very important issue and that's the very strong priority that we have, especially in the North and in Coromandel where it's been a real problem."

Meanwhile, the issue will be considered by Auckland Council's Auckland development committee on Thursday.

Auckland Council earlier said it was powerless to intervene.

Chief operating officer Dean Kimpton said plans to fell the tree so two houses could be built on private land were approved through the proper processes and the council had no mandate to revoke the consent.

"So for this tree nothing can be done," he said.

Barry said she was not sure if the Government could override a consent granted by the council.

While most Labour MPs were quick to protect the Kauri, the party's conservation spokeswoman Ruth Dyson pushed past media and refused to answer questions about whether it should be saved.

Phil Goff, Labour's spokesman for Auckland issues, wouldn't be drawn on Dyson's refusal to answer questions but insisted Barry should have an opinion.

"This is a part of Auckland's heritage, there should be protection of such trees," he said.

Goff was reluctant to join Cunliffe in the tree if he did make the climb but said he was "pretty good" at tree-climbing.

"All credit to the guy that's up there and doing the job," Goff said.

"Good on David [Cunliffe], I think it's in his electorate and if he wants to make that protest that's fine. For me there are other ways of doing it and I'm pursuing those ways."

Former prime minister Helen Clark yesterday wrote on Facebook that it was "extraordinary in this day and age that a permit would be given to fell a 500-year-old kauri tree".