KEY POINTS:
There will not be many people best pleased by the diabolical weather that's hit the top of the country this week although, at the risk of being impertinent or even, perish the thought, "racist", it's likely there was at least one besieged soul who experienced a frisson of relief when the Meteorological Service's strangely ebullient Weather Ambassador, Mr Bob McDavitt, unexpectedly predicted climatic misfortunes of great imminence and magnitude.
In addition to its many negative impacts, the catastrophic "weather bomb" which "blasted" the North did take our minds off the rather more metaphorical "storm of controversy" that had previously "raged" on both sides of the Tasman after Mr H. Harawira had "slammed" Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, for being "a racist bastard".
Eschewing all reference to the lining of clouds (or, indeed, the illness of wind) - it being the duty of every citizen to leave cliches where they properly belong, namely in the news - we can still assume that Mr Harawira might have detected the hand of a (Polynesian) God in the "trail of destruction" caused by the weather this week.
Because the storm's unwelcome destruction also provided a welcome distraction - at least for him. On Tuesday night, for example, while those of us with power were watching TV news coverage of the awful floods and devastation in the North, our Australian counterparts were enjoying the unusual sight of a New Zealand politician, no less a personage than the Maori Party co-leader, Dr Pita Sharples, actually tendering a fulsome apology to Mr Howard for any offence caused by the unwarranted slur on his parentage cast by Mr Harawira.
It's not the Maori Party way, Dr Sharples told his Ozzy audience, to indulge in personal attacks. It shouldn't have happened and we regret that it did. Mr Howard is not a racist, although we believe his policies are.
Asked why he was offering the apology rather than the heroic Hone, Dr Sharples replied that he was the Party leader, the buck stopped with him and so he was apologising on the utterer's behalf.
Given there was an enormous grin (some might say, smirk) on Mr Harawira's face when he was interviewed here and declared himself willing to apologise to the Maori Party but not to Australia's leader - let none suggest an apology conditional on ethnicity could ever be "racist" - we must assume the fearless and outspoken MP does not accept that Dr Sharples speaks for him.
Trouble is, he does. And has. And unless Hone - who, coincidentally, shares a Christian name, or Polynesian variant thereof, with Mr Howard - publicly disassociates himself from the apology offered it will stand as his as well as the Party's.
Moreover, to employ some of the colourful language the good gentleman himself appears to favour, if Mr H. doesn't disassociate himself from the apology, he will stand as nothing more than "a gutless wonder"; a weekend warrior willing to breathe fire and brimstone in a TV studio but not willing to do anything more courageous than hide behind his Leader's korowai, a single white feather midst the Huia when the excrement hits the fan.
Now, to be fair, Mr Harawira probably doesn't see things in those terms and doesn't need to either. After all, he's not answerable to all New Zealanders, only the ethnically determined electorate in an ethnically defined seat. Which isn't, in any sense, "racist" - most certainly not!
It can't be! As we all know, and none better than the insightful Hone, racism is a vileness which afflicts only white males and Mr Harawira is certainly not one of those, or not completely, anyway. He is a victim.
And Mr Howard is an oppressor. Each has a role in the greater scheme of things largely determined by the colour of their skin - and their actions, of course.
We already know what Mr Howard's actions are. He's moved to stop what he considers unacceptable levels of drunkenness, crime, domestic violence and child abuse, physical and sexual, in particular Australian communities.
Strangely enough, while his move has proved controversial, no one to date has accused the Australian Prime Minister of ethnic selectivity by focusing on one group while ignoring others among whom the problem is equally severe.
Mercifully, this point is lost on Mr Harawira, who's also made it clear what his actions would be in the event that similar steps were taken here. "If they tried this up north, we'd be out with guns. It wouldn't happen," is the MP for Tai Tokerau's unequivocal declaration.
In other words, should the incidence of wife-beating, child abuse, crime and violence in Hone's bailiwick ever be so great as to justify specific intervention, he and others of a similar mind would meet the government's well-meaning agents with armed resistance.
Well, that really is good news. Even those now facing the unhappy prospect of dealing with the mess created by this week's dreadful weather will likely find the time to thank their lucky stars we've got a man of Mr Harawira's indisputable intelligence and dazzling rationality looking after us all in our House of Representatives.
