Radical minister Turia has space to beat her drum

By AUDREY YOUNG

Prime Minister Helen Clark wants wider acceptance of her redoubtable, radical minister Tariana Turia, who is now beating her anti-colonialist drum from the Beehive.

The 56-year-old great-grandmother who speaks with quiet precision is one of Parliament's most forceful characters.

"I believe there is a place for her and I've always worked to make that place for her.

"Sometimes not everything that is said is helpful, but you take the rough with the smooth," Helen Clark said after a week in which it was revealed Mrs Turia advised Children's Commissioner Roger McClay not to publish Maori violence statistics without the context of social and economic effects of colonisation on Maori and claims she had tried to get women's refuge to tone down its negativity.

"My attitude has been that if you can't include people like Tariana, you'll end up with a point of view not represented in the political system," said Helen Clark.

"And if it can't be represented in the political system, then the frustration breaks out in other ways."

Former Labour Minister Koro Wetere tried to persuade Mrs Turia to stand 20 years ago "because he saw her potential."

"In a way, it's a pity it came so late," Helen Clark told the Herald.

Helen Clark believed the events of this week had reflected unfairly on Mrs Turia's attitude to violence in Maori families.

"She doesn't make excuses for anyone and it has ended up looking like she's making excuses. Nothing would be further from her mind.

"She has spent probably most of her working life trying to do something about it."

Mrs Turia is the daughter of an American marine who was in New Zealand and later killed in the Second World War.

She once said she had been devastated at the age of 14 to discover her Maori father was not her real father. It took a long time to adjust.

"I don't dislike my tau iwi side. I kind of feel that gives me the right to be critical."

She left school at 16 and went nursing but met and married George Turia, a plastering and bricklaying apprentice. They had six children, including two adopted, and fostered many others over the years. Mrs Turia is a Wanganui-based list MP.

She shot to national fame as the leading lady of the 79-day occupation of Moutoa Gardens in Wanganui in 1995 and was first elected to Parliament in 1996 on Labour's list.

She wanted to become a constituency MP for Te Tai Hauauru in 1999 but Tainui MP Nanaia Mahuta won selection.

In her first term Mrs Turia maintained her radical profile, calling Pakeha "tau iwi" (strangers), and taking on Mike Moore's "evil" views on the Treaty of Waitangi.

This term, she has maintained it from a position of much greater influence as a minister outside cabinet, with associate responsibilities in Maori Affairs; Corrections; Health; Housing; and Social Services and Employment.

And she is entrenching her reputation as someone who will take on anyone and who has a will as strong as Helen Clark's.

Mrs Turia walked out of caucus several weeks ago after it had signed off the health restructuring legislation requiring new health boards to form partnerships with local iwi.

She was upset she hadn't got a more strongly worded commitment to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi.

In fact what Labour has agreed upon is already hugely controversial.

Hauraki MP John Tamihere is a colleague and rival who believes Mrs Turia fosters a romantic notion of whanau, hapu and iwi kinship and who reckons she scares Labour liberals into submission.

He believes she does not have an interest in getting Pakeha on side.

Nonetheless, Mrs Turia is a rival he respects because there is little doubt about where she stands.