Editorial: Goff takes the brash approach

Opinion

Spot the difference between the following two pieces of political oratory: First, "Is [New Zealand] to be a modern democratic society, embodying the essential notion of one rule for all in a single nation state? Or is it [a] racially divided nation, with two sets of laws, and two standards of citizenship?" Second, "We can choose our future based on principle and with the interests of all New Zealanders at heart. Or we can have a country where one New Zealander is turned against another, Maori against Pakeha."

The first is taken from the speech by the then-new National Party and Opposition leader Don Brash, to the Orewa Rotary Club in January 2004. The second should be fresher in the memory: it is Phil Goff, the leader of the Labour Opposition, on Thursday, speaking to a meeting of Grey Power in Palmerston North.

The similarity of the sentiments is sobering. The political motivations may likewise be adjudged comparable, since both are utterances of men who want to be Prime Minister. But it's instructive to consider the differences as well.

Brash's comments did not differ strikingly from the established National Party line on race relations, yet, enunciated so explicitly, they resulted in an immediate and unprecedented 17-point surge in public support for National, and marked the starting point of a political ascendancy that almost led to victory in the 2005 election.

Goff's remarks, by contrast, to the extent that they could be described as philosophically coherent, represented a change of direction that is hard to interpret as other than opportunistic. It remains to be seen whether his speech will have the same public appeal as Brash's did, although it is hard to imagine it's making much difference to the party's woeful poll results - Labour trails National by around 25 points - or to Goff's own ranking as preferred prime minister, in which he lags, in some polls, behind Helen Clark, who is neither in the race nor in the country.

But regardless, Goff needs to be called to account for his pronouncements. In his speech he said that National's plans to repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act were pandering to Maori and would "divide New Zealanders, and set one against another". And he attacked the Prime Minister for a failure of leadership in not condemning the inflammatory and obscene email by Hone Harawira.

In doing so, he displayed a remarkable failure of short-term political memory that would be laughable if it were not so seriously intended. Goff, it should be remembered, was a the third-ranked minister in a Government whose leader refused to meet the thousands - Maori and Pakeha - who arrived at Parliament on a hikoi protesting against the foreshore and seabed legislation, instead dismissing them as "haters and wreckers". If ever a comment could be described as setting New Zealanders against one another, that was one - and Goff's failure to distance himself from it at the time or since has been conspicuous.

More than anything else, it was Labour's dismal handling of the foreshore and seabed matter in particular and race relations in general that led to the birth of the Maori Party and the improbable but apparently robust coalition it has forged with a party once led by Don Brash.

Goff's criticism of John Key for failing to condemn Harawira's "white motherf***er" email is odd, not least because Key promptly called the email "deeply offensive", which seems pretty unambiguous. But Key is not responsible for discipline in Maori Party ranks. If Goff is really arguing that the immoderate outburst of a known coalition partner hothead with no ministerial responsibility is the Prime Minister's business, he should explain why. And while he's about it, he might care to explain why the Labour Government remained silent during the Winston Peters funding controversies last year, knowing that Peters' survival was critical to its hopes of re-election.

The deal that National has done in exchange for Maori Party support for its emissions trading laws - indeed, the laws themselves - may be exceptionable. But Goff's attempt to re-animate the ghost of Don Brash is unseemly at best. His backing away from a bipartisan attempt to heal the damage done by the seabed and foreshore legislation makes it plain that he prizes political expediency above principle and is not above appealing to the electorate's baser instincts. But the country has moved on since 2004 and Goff may come to rue such a transparent strategy.