Labour in dangerous waters

By AUDREY YOUNG

The Maori flag is still firmly nailed to the mast of the good ship Coalition but as it sails blithely on, the vessel is developing a list.

If the problem is not addressed soon, the damage could be crippling.

Labour swept up the Maori vote last election.

But it has to keep the goodwill of the Pakeha electorate to stay in power.

It is in danger of alienating it over a series of emerging Maori matters, some deliberate, some accidental, which combined are creating an undercurrent of disquiet.

Labour's upfront and fundamentalist MP Tariana Turia is playing a key role in pushing the Government's treaty commitments into new waters.

And in the absence of the Prime Minister or other senior figures explaining where the Government is headed, Mrs Turia's brand of anti-colonisation rhetoric is filling the vacuum.

She is becoming the Government's conscience on treaty matters.

There are pockets of concern within the Coalition about the lack of strategy, about the concentration on micro-management and lack of big-picture analysis, but little acknowledgement that they could have a big problem on their hands.

Urban advocate John Tamihere might be enlisted as a better salesman and counterbalance to Turia's radicalism, but until he proves to Helen Clark he is well-behaved enough to win an associate ministership, he is too junior.

Turia, the whanau-hapu-iwi advocate, has greater influence at present.

If the worry over how treaty obligations are being interpreted by the Government were restricted to redneck voters, it wouldn't have much to worry about.

But when National's most cogent thinker, Simon Upton, and leftist commentator Chris Trotter are at one, and Maori leaders such as Shane Jones and Tamihere have publicly expressed their own worries, it is foolish to write off concerns as National trying to play the race card.

The most far-reaching of the Maori issues is the Treaty of Waitangi clause in the health restructuring legislation - the first time a clause has been included in social legislation.

It requires each health board to form a partnership with the "mana whenua" of its area.

Helen Clark moved this week to placate the fears that somehow this might mean preferential health treatment for Maori, regardless of need.

But fears over the constitutional implications for other Crown agencies remain.

It begs the question of what other bodies will be required to form similar partnerships and just what "partnership" means.

Should the principle extend to school boards of trustees or university councils?

It is as contentious within Maoridom, with disagreements over what "mana whenua" means.

Tamihere and cohort Alliance MP Willie Jackson will fight against mana whenua having partnership rights with the boards to the exclusion of contemporary Maori organisations.

Health minister Annette King is going to find herself at the sharp end of a constitutional debate about what "partnership" means.

Preferential treatment may not be part of the health agenda but it is explicitly provided for in the treaty clause of the free-trade agreement with Singapore released this week, and the Opposition plans to have a field-day with it.

It sets out the New Zealand Government's right to accord "more favourable treatment to Maori" in order to fulfil its treaty obligations.

The wording is stronger than that proposed by National, which said nothing should prevent the Government from honouring its treaty commitments.

Another sleeper issue about to be shaken awake next month is precedent-setting legislation for separate Maori constituencies in the Bay of Plenty regional council.

Should Labour's Maori caucus and Willie Jackson get their way and have a treaty clause included in the minimum employment code, the resulting debate could be bigger still.

As a schedule to the Employment Relations Act, it could impinge on the behaviour of private employers, not just the state.

The perceived pressure from Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia and Turia, his associate, on women's refuge head Merepeka Raukawa-Tait and Children's Commissioner Roger McClay to adjust their messages smacks of a new standard in cultural correctness.

The fall of Dover Samuels as Maori affairs minister has been a very sorry chapter in the Coalition's brief history.

And the desire, against advice, of Conservation Minister Sandra Lee to fund $260,000 for a private road and bridge repairs associated with Tuhoe nationalist and friend Tame Iti has reflected badly on her and the Government.

Like Tuku Morgan's $80 underpants, "Tame Iti's road" has a certain sleazy simplicity that will stick for a long time.

Helen Clark's statements knobbling the idea only fuelled the perception that there was something not right about it in the first place.

It has taken years for Pakeha voters to grudgingly accept that treaty settlements need to be fair and final.

Suddenly they find the Government embarked on a fresh and apparently uncharted course into the future.

Upton says the Government appears to be taking the treaty into a new realm in an ad hoc way that will end up being law made by the courts and not Parliament.

"They will get themselves into terrible, terrible trouble because the experience all of us have back to the mid-80s is that if you put something in law people will then test it."

Clark concedes that the Government can always do better in selling its policy.

But she disputes Upton's concerns about the health legislation.

"It's about a transition. It's about a journey.

"People could level the same charges at [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair, who started off on constitutional reform and has never been quite clear on where it's going at all.

"I'd even dispute that this is constitutional change."

Helen Clark says it is just about involving Maori in planning for and delivery of their health needs.

"So you need to find ways of bringing them into the planning and service delivery process.

"That's its significance. Nothing more, nothing less."

Helen Clark may have convinced herself there is no problem.

The people she needs to convince are those most likely to harbour the deepest resentment about measures to close the Maori gaps - her own low-income Pakeha voters with gaps of their own.