Deborah Coddington: Pollies' rush to Ratana a shameless publicity stunt

Phil Goff was threatened with excommunication from the church. Photo / Wanganui Chronicle

What is it with Ratana? Every year in late January we could synchronise our watches and kick off the political year when nearly every political party competes for the best reception as they trek to the Pa near Wanganui.

Why? Because that's when this obscure Maori religious movement celebrates the birth, in about 1873, of the movement's founder, Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana.

Politically astute, highly intelligent, he quickly turned from curing the sick to founding a political party and advancing the needs of his people, winning Maori seats and forging ties with Labour.

That was back in the 1930s, when Michael Joseph Savage was Prime Minister and, many still believe, New Zealand was a better place.

As last Tuesday's Herald editorial sweetly wrote of Labour and Ratana: "Neither tires of hearing the tale of the 1936 meeting where Ratana presented the new Prime Minister with three huia feathers protruding from a potato, along with greenstone and his grandfather's broken gold watch, symbolic of lost mana and broken Treaty promises".

But that was then, and this is now. Is it just because these so-called taonga, presented to Saint Michael of the Labour Party, are believed to be interred with Savage at Bastion Pt, that the country still allows this shameless lobbying, by both sides, to continue every January? It's hypocritical, and double standards are at work.

Prime Minister John Key took 20 National MPs and no doubt they basked in the praise heaped on them by Ratana elders that their government had "done so much more than others have done for the Maori people".

Two days later, Labour leader Phil Goff, who took a cast of 20 Labour MPs, was threatened with excommunication from the church for refusing to consider placing Ratana members high on the Labour list.

Why on earth should he? What I'd like to know is, how many of these 42 MPs, on December 25, attended a church to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? Because in New Zealand, 55.6 per cent of us identify as Christians - hardly an obscure faith.

How many of these 42 MPs celebrate the birth of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, a religious movement that probably does more than any other to help addicts, homeless people, single parents, and the desperate? What about the birth of Abram? We could do that out of respect to 19th-century Premier Julius Vogel, a Jew.

And let's not forget the 36,000-plus Muslims in New Zealand, who first began coming here in the 1870s with the Central Otago gold rush. Who are the 42 politicians booking the date for their celebratory day?

The country sneers at Brian Tamaki calling himself a bishop and, yes, the media were justified in questioning Tamaki's modus operandi. But the words "Ratana the Prophet" (who made his name as a faith healer) slip off the tongue without hesitation, and nobody would dare describe him as a charlatan.

If Don Brash had been upfront about meeting members of the Exclusive Brethren, would it have been more acceptable to those New Zealanders who can't tolerate anyone whose morals differ from their own?

By that, I mean religions which believe it's a crime to hold pro-gay views, oppose civil unions, and think women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

I doubt it, somehow. The poor old Brethren are dumped in that corner marked "cult", along with High Anglican, Roman Catholic, Jehovah's Witness and Mormon.

Let's face it, this country is terrified of organised religions, unless they're seen as politically or ethnically correct. As one friend in the press gallery reminded me: when Helen Clark was prime minister, she dutifully attended every religious celebration except those which were Christian. Ditto for most trendy New Zealanders.

Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Baha'i, Islam - they're all acceptable. But when I tell people I take my Mum to St Andrew's Anglican Church every Sunday and, worse than that, the Archdeacon has become a great mate, they think I need intervention.

We can learn much from all religions, regardless of whether we believe their spirituality. What does Ratana have that the others don't have?