Issue 90 - editorial

Slow Learners

Who would have thought when we launched this magazine in 1992 that here we would be in 2009 about to publish number 90? Keeping all the balls in the air, finding the funds to publish has been horrific – but we’re still here. Maybe we’re slow learners.

As we sent this issue off to print the All Blacks had just lost their third test in a row to the Springboks. ‘Kapai’ Graham Henry, quite an achievement. No other coach or AB’s team has managed that since 1949. After each loss you assure us that lessons have been learnt and then you go out and do it all over again. Slow learners.

That same weekend too the Labour Party held its annual conference. In amongst the rhetoric rationalising how they lost the last election and promising that they now know better – there was an admission that they had got it wrong on the foreshore and seabed; that they had done Maori wrong. Their aim now is to try desperately to win back the Maori vote.

You see they learnt the hard way that you can only take Maori for granted for so long – quite a long time in some cases - and then we eventually get hoha. John Key hasn’t learnt that lesson yet.

Oh yes it was a smart move to invite the Maori Party into the government after the last election. Keen to advance the situation of its constituents and get them out of the raft of negative statistics that surround them, the Maori Party took up the challenge.

But the honeymoon is over. A decision by John Key and his cohort - the ugly face of the extreme right – Rodney Hide, have put paid to that.

Ignoring the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Auckland ‘super city’ was an act of unnecessary ‘gung-hoery’. Deciding not to include Maori seats was dogmatic foolishness and political naivety.

Auckland civic, business, religious and community leaders have all told the government they are wrong to exclude dedicated Maori seats. The government has further annoyed a raft of other people in other ways by their handling of Auckland’s transition. There is also a strong suspicion that Rodney Hide is preparing to sell off community assets.

The young bucks in the Labour Party, who didn’t support, or weren’t around, when Labour screwed Maori with the foreshore and seabed legislation, are keen to win back the Maori vote and regain power. If John Key hopes for another term in government he has to deny Labour those Maori votes. And there is only one way he can do that. He has to ensure that the Maori Party not only keeps them, but by delivering real outcomes for Maori – and the nation – he has to grow that
voter support.

John Key and Rodney Hide are on the wrong side of history on the Auckland issue; they are failing to read the breeze of change finally blowing through our society. Rodney and Act won’t be in Parliament after the next election. Rodney’s only there because National pulled back their candidate in Epsom to let him through. But with Act now sitting at one percent in the polls why should they be there in future? On the other hand the Maori Party won its five seats.

John Key is starting to look to be as slow a learner as Helen Clark was. She made Maori hoha and lost. John Key is heading down the same path.

Kia ora