The highs and lows of being Horomia

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Up and down, up and down, a reluctant jack-in-a-box, goes the Maori Affairs Minister, Parekura Horomia.

See Horomia drag himself from his seat to wrench from his mouth the words "yes" and "no" and "Mr Gardiner is looking into it".

And up and down his mouth goes, a barometer of emotion.

See Horomia puff up with relief when he's ducked a few, or deflate like a balloon after a barbed dart makes contact.

The show is strangely compelling - if you happen to like watching traffic accidents.

When he's in the House, he can look as uncomfortable as a man in a badly fitting suit. Possibly that's because he is a man who does not look comfortable in a suit.

By the time I reach his office, late in the afternoon, the jacket and tie have been discarded. In shirt sleeves he looks much more at ease. Eventually.

At first he acknowledges my presence with about as much enthusiasm as he might muster should Rodney Hide present himself in his office.

But he is far too good-natured to sit with someone for an hour and not offer a little in the way of entertainment.

Of course, Horomia has also had media training - from the PM's personal groomers - over the weekend.

How can we tell? He has pulled out old photographs from his earlier career as a bureaucrat. The point is to demonstrate that he has capably managed hundreds of people. Many have gone on to become leading figures in Maoridom. He seems slightly half-hearted about such a show-and-tell.

Later, and I think more honestly, he says wryly, when he catches himself being "a bit defensive", that "this is a bit silly - the insecure boy from the bush. And I suppose I'm here to try to express to you how intelligent and well educated I am."

Occasionally he appears to stop himself in mid-flow, as though to give himself a little reminder of how these things should go.

He does not talk the utter nonsense which has earned him the reputation of the bumbling, fumbling minister.

But he is the master of the malaprop. He makes the tangible results for Maori under his ministership "intangible."

Jane Clifton wrote in the Listener: "Parekura Horomia is now recognised as a whole new language."

Well, you know what they say, minister, it's better to be talked about than not talked about. That lifts the mouth a little. "Yeah, that's right, I suppose."

Then, "Okay. Good having you here. I've been busy." This is by way of acknowledging that I have been asking his office for an interview for a fortnight. He is, we could hazard without too much fear of contradiction, seen as media shy. He has granted this interview, but you do have to ask why.

"How can I put this nicely? So I'm not rude to you."

He thinks about this for a while. He hates being rude. He is famously amiable. Too amiable, some people would say.

Certainly he seems hyper-sensitive about my feelings when it comes to breaking the rather obvious news that I am Pakeha media.

"It's not so much about me being media shy. I spend a lot of time in Maori media. And that takes a lot of time because when you get caught on Maori radio it takes an hour, easily."

But he also has a "subtle cynicism on how the press generally has treated Maoridom over the generations. But I don't have the right to say, 'Well, bugger off, you lot'."



For all his media shyness, he is unfailingly pleasant, even when asked such intrusive, personal details as how he and Weight Watchers are getting along.

He grins and says, "Look," patting his chest. "I'm all over right here." Elsewhere, he says, he might be a bit "soggy." (I have asked, incidentally, not out of any desire to be rude but because he raised the subject of his weight when his appointment was announced.)

He is forthright enough, in his roundabout way. I can look at anything in his in-tray - except the note the PM passed him in the House that day.

On Te Mangai Paho, he has little to say until Wira Gardiner has produced his report. His mouth tips up again: "Wira's doing a good job."

On John Tamihere, who has been tipped as being after Horomia's job, he says he and Tamihere are cousins and friends.

A good mate who wants his seat? "Well, that happens in any forum. And it's well known that John is a real challenger."

He says, "Yeah, I suppose so," if you ask him if his job's safe.

"That doesn't worry me, frankly. My life is settled in my soul and I know where home is."

The odd thing about Horomia is that he is by all accounts a fluent orator on the marae.

That he is the very opposite in the House is partly cultural. "That's a lot of other people's theatre. My theatre is out with the community."

Still, this is his job and "I have to do better at it, I suppose".

Looking at his performance you might think he gets terribly nervous. "No, I get angry." Getting angry does, he guesses, have an effect on what comes out of his mouth.

"I'll be really crude about it: the last couple of weeks have been about blatant racism. I think Rodney drives a racist agenda not too dissimilar to Pauline Hanson. End of story."

Saying so is not going to win him much support outside of Maoridom. And possibly not with his colleagues, who are saying, well, what exactly to him?

"Oh, you know, they're friends. Good people in the Labour Party never set to on each other."

He chuckles away. Not even John? "Not even John. We're all good to each other. We love each other."

Despite the love-in, he doesn't look like he's having much fun. Fortunately, for any politician, he has an optimistic outlook. Remind him of his East Coast rugby team, the one that lost every game, and he says: "No, that was the team that never won a game."

He talks with longing of going home to the family farm in Tolaga Bay. There is real tenderness in his gravelly growl (he is a chronic asthmatic).

He lives alone and has come to like living alone. He has described himself as a reserved loner. Partly the job - not just this one but the 30 years in Maori development and politics - has made him this way. But it is also his nature.

There is a little regret there. "One of the issues is that when you get into relationships or partnerships you have to show more commitment than [there was from] the wanderer I was."

He will not be the loner for much longer. One of his aunties has decided he needs taking in hand and is moving in.

"Oh," he says chuckle, chuckle, wheeze, wheeze, "a whole lot of people think I need looking after."