State of the Nation dull with mad moments

By GREG DIXON

Perhaps I was standing too close to the television. But I swear I could smell charter not treaty on the breath of State Of The Nation last night.

TV One's live debate on race relations - no actually just on Maori-Pakeha relations - was the sort of television those who have pilloried TVNZ's charter said it would deliver: well-intentioned but wishy-washy television.

Over two hours in an echo-filled New Plymouth room, State Of The Nation put New Zealand on air in a laudably worthy but too often dull and ponderous examination of "ordinary" New Zealander's views.

Anchor Anita McNaught and co-hosts Robert Rakete and Kerre Woodham worked damned hard to make it work, rushing hither and thither in an attempt to inject energy into a static display.

There might have been a lot of love in the room, it was hard to tell. Much of the audience spent the evening as seated corpses.

What it certainly felt like was another day at Room 11 at New Plymouth primary with McNaught asking for a show of hands at the start and finishing with our homework, some recommended reading.

In between it was too much of a mad rush from show-and-tell history, from one subject, one speaker to the next. Complex issues were dissolved by random soundbites.

Some Pakeha did us no credit. It was only 15 minutes into the actual debate when some cretin yelled, "I don't know any white people who ate each other."

It was an angry moment, and McNaught shut him down quickly, sounding more than a little rattled.

There were bizarre moments too. When "expert" panelist and author Alan Duff thundered that Maori weren't innocents and were divided, one Maori man yelled back that Maori were proud cannibals " and so were the Scots."

There was the flat-out funny. "What about the panel?" bellowed a frustrated Duff the Muss later.

"You got your free lunch," fired one-liner Woodham.

More heat than light. The roar of the crowd. It was inevitable. Sadly for the debate, which floundered on the rocks of the raving, it was the angry, weird and hilarious bits that were the best television.

The question left hanging after its two, long hours was not treaty but charter: How do you have a sensible, meaningful TV debate?

Do you have experts who are able to tease out nuance and explain implications - or a bunch of "ordinary" New Zealanders who certainly have valid opinions but often don't have the ability to make clear or even relevant points?

Unfortunately neither the treaty nor the charter have an answer.