Ruth Berry: Horomia weighed down by heavy load

COMMENT

As Christmas approaches, Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia might appear to have good reason to feel less weighed down.

Aside from the many kilos he has shed, life for Horomia was particularly grim mid-year. And while the spotlight has shifted off him, the minister still appears harried.

It's a Horomia characteristic, but the Government has had a particularly rough ride on the Maori issues front this year and it's not over yet.

It is bracing itself for a fresh round of artillery over the release of its foreshore and seabed policy, scheduled in two weeks.

There are hopes the pre-Christmas timing will soften the blow, together with the determined courting of iwi and other group leaders Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen, Horomia and others have engaged in over the past month.

While Horomia and others may face renewed, if more muffled, calls for their resignations, it would be far less traumatic than the situation Horomia previously found himself in.

Six months ago yesterday the damning Treasury report into the series of wrong answers he was provided regarding Te Mangai Paho was released and the Opposition began calling for his head.

As the attacks kept coming, Horomia's already bumbling performance degenerated into a recurring pantomimic nightmare.

By mid-June frustration was such that the Herald's editorial called for Prime Minister Helen Clark to replace him.

Discontent within the Maori caucus saw three of his fellow Maori MPs publicly express concerns the next day about his health.

While Clark gritted her teeth and continued to back him, Horomia's position had become extremely tenuous.

Maori affairs had again become the portfolio of the long black cloud.

But already winging its way to Clark's table - the same day as the Herald editorial - came the Court of Appeal foreshore and seabed decision.

It could hardly be classed as a divine type of intervention, but it was a diversion which may well have saved Horomia.

Suddenly the jobs of all the Maori MPs, aware of the seismic ramifications of Clark and Margaret Wilson's initial clumsy handling of the issue, looked insecure.

The Horomia problem was all but forgotten as he headed out of Parliament's bearpit and on to marae - on which, contrary to Beehive spinning, he is not a strong performer, although he is well liked and well connected.

Months on, the jury is still out on the Government's overall handling of Maori issues.

The Maori Fisheries Bill was recently introduced with little negative publicity.

The foreshore issue may have operated as a diversion here too. It saw hapu and iwi put old fisheries battles aside to work together against the Government.

The Waitangi Fisheries Commission, seen as the agent of division in the allocation carve-up, threw its muscle in behind, allowing it to recast itself in a cohesive, pro-Maori role.

This all made life easier for the Government.

Horomia's plans to appoint new interim commissioners - up to five new appointments are tipped - have annoyed the commission but may help to appease those opposed to the bill, such as Ngai Tahu.

Tensions which have arisen between the Waitangi Tribunal and the Government on a number of fronts this year, building to a head over the foreshore, may also be partly alleviated by Horomia's plan to finally announce the appointment of acting chairman Joe Williams, also the Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court, as chairman.

Former chairman Eddie Durie resigned more than a year ago, but the Government has held off replacing him and Cullen signalled several months ago that he had concerns about judges sitting in both jurisdictions.

The Chief Judge's appointment may be subject to an agreement that he choose one or the other job in three or four years.

A real test of Horomia's political skills will be his handling of Te Puni Kokiri's restructuring, now delayed until the New Year, and set to cause angst at senior levels.

The changes, with a new strategic direction, follow severe criticism of the agency's performance contained in a State Services Commission review held in the wake of the TMP debacle.

The job descriptions of most of the top management layer have been refigured and some, including officials close to Horomia, will be sidelined and may opt to leave with hefty redundancies.

Chief executive Leith Comer will become secretary of the ministry, flanked by four deputies. There will be increased focus on policy with less emphasis on TPK's patchy auditing and monitoring of other departments - a function beefed up by the incoming 1999 Government and then trumpeted as a pillar of "Closing the Gaps".

If TPK fails to live up to the new slogan it is planning to use to mark the rejig - "Maori succeeding as Maori" - Horomia faces further scrutiny.

He was annoyed when State Services Minister Trevor Mallard labelled it the worst-performing department, but was lucky to avoid more personal criticism, given ongoing concerns he struggles to set firm directions.

Most immediately and visibly telling when it comes to rating the Government's performance will be the extent of response to the foreshore and seabed policy.

Meetings with iwi and other key players have been a "diary priority" for Cullen throughout November. He has won respect for his willingness to engage and his growing grasp of iwi concerns.

Cabinet papers drafted by the Prime Minister's department were recently rejected by him as not properly reflecting these.

He's promising a working group to improve hapu and iwi input into coastal management, likely to involve reviews of laws such as the Resource Management Act.

Iwi will get 20 per cent of new marine farms as part of an aquaculture deal to be announced after the foreshore one.

But while Cullen will flesh out the the Government's four foreshore and seabed principles to better reflect Maori interests, the guts will remain unchanged.

The Government is bracing itself for more anger, fiesty tribunal hearings and a marathon select committee process - where tensions will flare again over the fisheries bill - next year.

Already indicative of the Government's own rating of its performance, however , is the queue of Maori ministers leveraging for bigger Budget bids, claiming they need fillips for their constituents.

There is also understood to be more than usual reticence over whether Clark should weather it at Waitangi. Harassed Horomia may well have just swapped one set of burdens weighing him down for another.