By AUDREY YOUNG
Dover Samuels' reinstatement to Helen Clark's ministry marks a new way of dealing with recalcitrant ministers.
Gone are the days when a minister took an age to resign but then stayed resigned.
Now it's the yellow card, the sinbin and back.
Mr Samuels' return may have been forced by political pragmatism but nonetheless, Helen Clark is rewriting the rulebook on cabinet discipline.
New Zealand is heading towards the Westminster practice of sin, punishment and rehabilitation.
Marian Hobbs, also reinstated yesterday, is not quite in the same category because Helen Clark does not accept Hobbs sinned by claiming out-of-town allowances. She is back because she did nothing wrong.
Not that that dictates things entirely. Drink-driving ex-minister Ruth Dyson is in the sinbin and expected to be reinstated in three months when she gets her licence back.
Nine months ago the Prime Minister sacked Mr Samuels as Maori Affairs Minister amid unproven allegations of an illicit relationship with a teenager in the 1980s.
The Labour MP for Te Tai Tokerau now becomes Under-Secretary to the Economic Development Minister, Alliance leader and Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton.
The pair kept up a good relationship after Mr Anderton left Labour in 1988 - one of the few not to cross the road to avoid him, said one insider.
And Mr Anderton was very supportive of Mr Samuels in his crisis.
The comeback was confirmed at Helen Clark's office yesterday before the caucus with Mr Samuels, his friend and right-faction minister George Hawkins, Labour president and peace-broker Mike Williams and Labour deputy Michael Cullen.
Helen Clark is understood to have offered the potential of further elevation for Mr Samuels when Ruth Dyson returns to the ministry in three months after her driving disqualification ends.
He may then pick up some associate ministerships to relieve his Maori Affairs successor, Parekura Horomia, but he could not reasonably be expected to become an associate minister to Mr Horomia.
The atmosphere oozed conciliation as the Labour leader emerged from the caucus to announce Mr Samuels' and Marian Hobbs' reinstatement.
"Dover has been put on a rack. We've discussed that in full."
Mr Samuels spoke about moving on from "the deep hurt" his family had suffered and Helen Clark took her share of the blame.
"We both acknowledge our responsibility for certain events and we are moving on."
For a Prime Minister who is often seen as unforgiving and uncompromising, it has a nice ring.
In reality, Mr Samuels' return was much more an exercise in political management and pragmatism than forgiveness. In the interest of keeping the Labour Maori vote, Mr Samuels had to be offered an olive branch at some stage.
Marian Hobbs provided Mr Samuels' supporters in Labour's right faction and in Maoridom the opportunity for Clark do to so.
Labour's Maori caucus and Maori policy council had already begun agitating and told the Prime Minister this month that they wanted another Maori in the ministry.
Helen Clark told reporters yesterday that she had not felt pressured in reinstating Mr Samuels.
But nothing was more certain than had she not promoted Marian Hobbs and not Mr Samuels, she would have received galeforce pressure from the party's Maori and right factions, from Maoridom and the Opposition. Winston Peters already had his anti-feminist lines prepared - that Mr Samuels was - and is being kept out because he was a man.
Labour needed to rehabilitate Mr Samuels to minimise reasons for Maori voters to support the Derek Fox Maori party next election.
Since his sacking, Mr Samuels has changed from an accident-prone minister struggling to manage a big portfolio to something of an underdog fighting for his reputation with his family standing by.
He was a ready-made martyr for Mr Fox to exploit.
Mr Samuels' promotion is also likely to help efforts by him and Hauraki MP John Tamihere to secure Helen Clark's return to Waitangi in election year - and deny Mr Fox yet another platform.
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