Helen Clark may be the fittest Prime Minister New Zealand has had but she is not accustomed to doing somersaults of the kind she did yesterday, deciding at the 11th hour to ask two ministers to go to Waitangi today.
Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia and his associate minister Tariana Turia will go.
And now that the Labour pair are heading north, the other associate minister, Alliance MP Sandra Lee, wants to go, too.
The three had been planning hometown events in Gisborne, Wanganui and on Waiheke Island in the wake of a cabinet directive to ministers and the Royal New Zealand Navy to stay away and the request to the Governor-General to celebrate the day elsewhere as well.
It was a position Helen Clark was still holding in interviews early yesterday.
She emphasised that it was a cabinet decision, not a personal edict.
By lunchtime she had changed her mind.
Ostensibly, the reason for the change of heart is to allow the Government's presence at a forum run by Tai Tokerau leader Sir Graham Latimer and Tuhoe elder Sir John Turei on a 40-year vision for Waitangi Day.
The forum gives Helen Clark a chance to reinforce her preference for Maori moderates and conservatives, ironically by sending her most radical minister (Mrs Turia) to a talk-in co-organised by Sir Graham, a former National Party Maori vice-president.
The move allows the Government to have a presence at Waitangi without being there on the terms of local organisers such as the irascible Kingi Taurua.
The ministers are bridge-builders who will make it easier for the Government to return more formally next year, election year.
Whatever the merits of the hui, in reality Helen Clark can be grateful that there was a presentable excuse for the volte-face.
While she read public opinion well in her efforts to extend the focus of Waitangi Day beyond the boundaries of the Treaty Grounds, a complete boycott opened up political dangers for Labour.
Mrs Turia obviously sensed it, because she advised the PM yesterday morning to change her mind.
Helen Clark may have been mellowed by her visit to Northland last week.
The Prime Minister's stinging criticisms of Waitangi hosts Ngapuhi, her sacking of local MP Dover Samuels as Maori Affairs Minister and the downgrading of the Closing the Gaps policy from its flagship status meant that the formerly comfortable relations between Labour and Maori were becoming strained.
A Government boycott of Waitangi simply created a political vacuum that begged to be filled.
Maori nationalistic talk at the forums held yesterday, without the usual Government presence, was said by observers there to be much stronger than in previous years.
If it wasn't irritating enough for Labour that National leader Jenny Shipley delights in her visits to Waitangi, Wairoa Mayor Derek Fox was up at Waitangi yesterday beating the drums for his planned Maori party.
Until yesterday the Waitangi Day issue had been handled abysmally. It was exacerbated by Te Arawa's leaving Helen Clark stranded when it withdrew an invitation amid internal disagreement over whether the iwi should invite her to any Waitangi Day function.
The Government decision yesterday will justifiably be seen as ad hoc and will send confusing messages.
But having a Government presence at Waitangi was a decision that should have been made some time ago.
At least it has been made.
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