Editorial: Harawira sideshow just keeps rolling on

Hopefully, at some point, a real politician will soon emerge from the spectacle that Hone Harawira has somehow morphed into.
Big on bluster and presence, Mr Harawira nonetheless seems, so far, to be bereft of policy but full of strange and outlandish ways to draw attention to himself.
Mr Harawira's latest stunt last week involved refusing to read the traditional affirmation as part of his swearing-in ceremony after wining the Te Tai Tokerau by-election, instead trying to pledge allegiance to the Treaty of Waitangi. Speaker Lockwood Smith then asked Mr Harawira to leave the House.
Mr Harawira is not stupid. He's been around long enough to know the procedure for a parliamentary swearing-in ceremony. He's even been sworn in twice before himself. He's also seen enough of Dr Smith to know he's been a stickler for the rules ever since he began his role as Speaker.
But then, Mr Harawira has never really followed the rules and it seems his approach has rubbed off on those who follow him. As Dr Smith asked Mr Harawira to leave the House, about 60 of the Mana leader's supporters in Parliament's public gallery broke into waiata, and continued singing after Mr Harawira left, despite calls from Dr Smith to show respect for the House.
Mr Harawira has every right to believe in whatever he chooses and to espouse those beliefs. But it's hard to see how Mana will ever rise above the position of a niche party while its leader continues to be obstructive at the very institution he seemingly so desperately wants to be a part of.
Part of Mr Harawira's issue with his former colleagues in the Maori Party was the concessions he viewed them as making in order to become part of the governing arrangement with National and Act. The opposing argument was always that it was easier to make substantive change from inside the tent of power, and that's something Mr Harawira will soon discover.
Yet what major party would want to form any sort of serious alliance with Mana, given the loose-cannon antics of its leader?
Mr Harawira will still attract a certain proportion of the vote, based largely around the politics of anger, factionalism and historic grievance.
The sad aspect to all this is that, as long as the Harawira sideshow rolls on, Mana still appears to be no closer to putting forward any sort of policy that might make a real difference in the lives of the people it claims to stand for.
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