Belatedly, the Prime Minister has backed down on the Government boycott of today's treaty signing commemoration at Waitangi. Yesterday, she changed her tune sufficiently to encourage the Maori Affairs Minister and his associate to make the trek north. Belatedly, it seems to be registering on Helen Clark that, in a remarkably brief period, the rekindled relationship between Maori and the Labour Party has soured. Belatedly, it should also be dawning on her that a non-event does not equate to a positive occasion. Her participation in family and multicultural events in Wellington and Auckland today is a poor substitute for celebrating Waitangi Day at the nation's birthplace.
There was understandable sympathy when Helen Clark chose not to go to Waitangi last year. But past indignities should not have prompted an unwillingness on the part of her cabinet to forge a rapprochement that might have secured her return this year. This is a Prime Minister who, much to her credit, appreciates New Zealand history and wishes to see it more widely understood. Thus the extra work put into her visit to Gallipoli last year. Obviously, she also realises the significance of Waitangi. Yet not only has she turned her back on the celebrations, but she has instructed the Governor-General and the Navy not to attend.
Helen Clark intends her Waitangi Day to be spent in a safe, non-confrontational environment. Inevitably, however, that will make the day a little less special for all New Zealanders. Equally, she has alienated Ngapuhi elders, who feel spurned after virtually begging the Prime Minister to return to Waitangi. So much so that one elder went so far last week as to describe the Prime Minister as tangi weto - a cry-baby. Additionally, Maori in the Bay of Plenty, who also feel Helen Clark should be at Waitangi, withdrew an invitation to her to observe the day with Te Arawa in Rotorua.
Such disaffection is the more regrettable when a single gesture of reconciliation would in all likelihood have reaped rich reward. The Prime Minister's attendance at Waitangi could have been that sign. She was even given an incentive, through the intention of Maori leaders including Sir Graham Latimer and Sir John Turei to initiate a 40-year development plan for their people at the Treaty Grounds. If ever there were evidence that Maori leadership was striving to reintroduce dignity to the occasion, this was surely it.
Yet, while acknowledging as much, Helen Clark's sole meaningful response has been to deploy Parekura Horomia and Tariana Turia. Now, it is too late to rescue much of substance from this Waitangi Day. A chance to reinvigorate the relationship between Maori and Pakeha has been lost.
While that may be regrettable enough, the potential damage for the Government goes much deeper. Increasingly, Maori are questioning the value of the return to the Labour Party fold. Ratana Church elder Tumanako Wereta was clearly not speaking just for himself when he attacked the "sanitising" of the Closing the Gaps policy.
The dilution of that policy, through the focus being extended to all inequality between rich and poor, smacked of a Government keen to follow the path of least resistance. As, indeed, did the neutralisation of Waitangi Day until Maori conduct themselves "with dignity." Maori have noted that the Government's first year in office was not marked by a similar lack of determination in other fields.
Placing the Government under a performance review, as the Ratana Church has done, may, however, be a trifle premature. Maori were never going to design and run their own schools and health and welfare schemes overnight. The first year was bound to be devoted mainly to putting the correct structures in place. Helen Clark may, as she contends, be able to return to Ratana in 12 months with a more convincing record of achievement.
At the moment, however, the Government has succeeded only in opening the gaps between Maori and Pakeha - even if sometimes more in perception than practice. Pledges have not so much been broken as compromised; attempts at reconciliation have been shunned. Over the next year, the Prime Minister must close the gaps, for the sake of her party and, more importantly, the country.
Only when the Prime Minister is at Waitangi can the day be, in Helen Clark's words, "a positive occasion for all New Zealanders."
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