By VERNON SMALL and ANGELA GREGORY
The h-word is back, but this time it is Conservation Minister Sandra Lee in the dogbox with the Prime Minister for referring to a Maori "holocaust."
At a national hui on child abuse Ms Lee used it to describe the effects of colonisation on Maori, despite Helen Clark's instructing ministers in September not to use it in a New Zealand context.
National leader Jenny Shipley said Ms Lee was deliberately defying Helen Clark.
Helen Clark, described by a spokesman as "less than impressed" by Ms Lee's action, rang Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton yesterday to express her annoyance.
But late yesterday she was leaving Mr Anderton, the Alliance leader, to handle the fallout.
"Sandra Lee agrees that the use of the word in the context of her discussion of the devastating depopulation of Maori in the last century is inappropriate. I have asked her not to use the word in future," he said.
Associate Maori Affairs Minister Tariana Turia sparked a storm of controversy in August when she said: "The holocaust suffered by Maori tribes during the land wars needs to be acknowledged."
Ms Turia also addressed the 200-strong national hui in Christchurch on Saturday, suggesting Ms Lee had wanted to speak second "to mop up" if she said anything stupid.
But Ms Lee repeatedly referred to what she described as "the h-word" before saying it.
Ms Lee said: "Holocaust? In 1840 there were 40,000 of our people in this country, 40 years later there was one-quarter left. If that is not a holocaust how does a holocaust word apply to anything?"
On urbanisation she said: "Do you think the people forgot to be good parents when they got on the bus for Auckland ... what happened before that? What forced them to get on the bus in the first place? ...
"One hundred and fifty years ago a whole nation of people had their land and resources taken off them ... if anyone thinks ... there'll be no consequences, [they] better think again."
Ms Lee said people were uncomfortable with the "closing the gaps" tag, used by the Government, which in her view was a euphemism for poverty and took responsibility away from the people who helped create the poverty.
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