KEY POINTS:
The trouble with the pre-Christmas sales was that in all the excitement, few seem to have checked for money-back guarantees.
Take the John Key 100-day action doll which just flew off the shelves a month or so back. The wrappers were hardly off the box of that hot little item when it conked out and had to be laid on a beach in Hawaii to try and recharge the batteries.
It staggered back to life briefly, but sadly all that sunlight must have damaged the circuitry controlling its brain-eye co-ordination for within days a foot gave out and down it tumbled, breaking an arm in the process.
Now poor old action man is so enfeebled he can't even run a flag up the pole on the Auckland Harbour Bridge without calling for the assistance of a conference of all Maoridom. Which sounds suspiciously like the policies of the tired old toy we traded in for the super new model.
This time two years ago, Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia and his leader Helen Clark ducked the issue by promising to consider flying the tino rangatiratanga flag atop the harbour bridge to mark Waitangi Day, but not that year. There wasn't time to consider the issue.
Now Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples, co-leader of the Maori Party, has called on his National Party partners to symbolise their recent marriage by raising the Maori flag on February 6. It would, said Dr Sharples, demonstrate "a willingness by New Zealand to recognise the bicultural nature of our foundation which is recognised on Waitangi Day".
Instead of seizing the moment, Prime Minister Key followed his Labour predecessors and equivocated. He saw "no particular reason" to object to the Maori flag flying alongside the national ensign on Waitangi Day, on the bridge or even parliament buildings for that matter. However he wanted full consultation with Maori beforehand.
This from a Government which campaigned to stamp out the culture of consultation they claimed was stultifying progress across this land. If there was ever a case for just getting on with something, raising the Maori flag on Waitangi Day is it. The issue of which flag to use is a red herring.
Apparently this was the sticking point for the board of the bridge operators, NZ Transport Agency, when they debated the annual request at their December meeting. Agency directors were happy to reverse their predecessor, Transit New Zealand's ban. However their officials cautioned there could be arguments within Maoridom over the relative merits of the tino rangatiratanga flag versus the 1834 "independence" flag. The board decided they had plenty of
problems of a roading nature to be going on with and passed the buck on to the new Government. Where, presumably, Dr Sharples came in.
One of the Transport Agency's worries was whether Ngati Whatua, the local Auckland tribe, would agree. Yet two years previously, Ngati Whatua o Orakei matua, Grant Hawke, supported the flying of the tino rangatiratanga flag. He followed this up with an email to Dr Sharples last week repeating this endorsement.
"Some suggest the flag is not the official Maori flag," he wrote. "Indeed Ngati Whatua has its own flags that represent our mana here in Tamaki and in the Kaipara which we could rightly demand to be flown. Most other tribes too have their own flags that represent their own reactions to colonisation and the protection of their identity.
'However we recognise the tino rangatiratanga flag as fairly representative of all the Maori people ... and think it would be a significant milestone in the advancement of our society as Aotearoa-New Zealand to see both flags flying above our beautiful Waitemata River on our national day."
Tuhoe activist Tame Iti said much the same, arguing the issue of which flag to choose shouldn't be used to prevent a Maori symbol being flown on Waitangi Day. Maori voices up and down the country have echoed these sentiments.
As I said a couple of years back when Transit first rejected the "Maori" flag, if I were running the place, I'd go a step further, ditch the tired old colonial relic of a national flag we currently use and hijack the Maori flag as its replacement. It breathes life and action and a sense of place that the borrowed old imperial ensign we've made do with since 1902 never has.
The winner of a 1990 contest for a Maori flag, the black and red halves represent the Maori creation myth with a central white koru shape representing the unfolding of new life, renewal and hope for the future. What better national emblem could we want?
Whether up a pole, flying proudly at the head of a protest march or waved defiantly out of a car window, it looks spectacular. At the head of our Olympic team, it would be a winner.
I know as a Pakeha it's none of my business, but to me, the main rival as Maori flag - the 1834 relic - is a non-starter. With its red cross of St George in one corner and four stars, it was one of three alternatives presented to 35 northern chiefs by British representative James Busby. They were told to pick one as a national flag.
He also got them to hastily sign a declaration of independence to head off rumours that Baron Charles de Thierry was planning to set up an independent kingdom in the Hokianga. At best the flag and declaration represented the tribes, in Busby's words, "from the North Cape to the latitudes of the River Thames".
Like the present national flag, it was not indigenous and it wasn't even national. And design-wise, the newer 1990 model leaves anything else in its dust.
If John Key wants to revive his image as a man of action before his 100-day guarantee runs out, he should declare the flag consultation complete, run up the tino rangatiratanga flag, then quietly forget to take it down and see what happens. He might be surprised how widespread the support is. And it would distract the media from his plastered arm.
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