Especially when, as in this case, the policy is supported by the left and the right.
That can only mean one of two things: either it's universally recognised as being good for the country or someone is trumping someone else without them realising they're being one-upped. Nine times out of 10 in politics, it's the latter.
In the case of Maori control of primary assets, it's probably both.
Now, I find myself in a rather strained position on this.
On one hand, I fully support the partnership principle underlying the Treaty of Waitangi and see these initiatives as a natural means to fulfil that principle.
Certainly that's how this movement towards shared responsibility has been framed and quietly advanced - or not so quietly in the case of seabed and foreshore legislation - and as a Pakeha who believes both sides have equal rights under Te Tiriti that's hard to argue against.
But on the other, as a staunch democrat and someone who knows the mechanics of governance from the inside, it's difficult to grasp how these joint groups can be governed properly as an adjunct to the current system - and I cannot support the establishment of bodies which are not directly responsible to the public at large. Even a public divided on racial grounds.
See, even if everyone on the "Pakeha" side of the table were elected (via the triennial local body or national elections) to their positions - and many specialist bureaucrats on existing bodies were not - the majority on the "Maori" side of the table would be appointees, appointed either by the Pakeha side or by some tribal body, or a bit of both.
And, at the risk of seeming culturally insensitive, it's questionable whether many of those appointees would actually be the people chosen to represent their "side" if an open election were held for their position.
Maybe this is no bad thing. Maybe it's correct to think we need to adopt a clandestine approach in establishing this new resource-management model in order to successfully adjust to the fact of it.
And that unelected persons of suitable experience are best at set-up stage, as an intermediate step done away with once the model is working as it should.
But even so, it's not a very honest way of doing it, is it? And it begs an awful lot of questions.
Like: If this approach is designed to keep the lid on the powderkeg of racial prejudice, won't its inherent disingenuousness likely cause the very explosion it seeks to prevent?
Or: If the intent is to move from a single to a dual system of governance, wouldn't it be wise to debate how that is best achieved before starting to institute it?
What really worries me is the political right supporting what was, through Mana Motuhake's Sandra Lee via a Labour government, a strategy introduced by the left.
Iwi, through their blossoming business structures, are becoming corporatised.
Corporates by nature are more interested in making money from resources, rather than protecting them. And many appointees to these new bodies are corporate businessmen who just happen to be brown.
Greed has a tendency to lead people down many a wayward path.
Is it such a stretch to think "guardianship" might be subsumed in the rush for "prosperity"? Bet that's what the right thinks will happen. And as it stands, we ordinary citizens - regardless of background - will have no say in how that pans out.
That's the right of it.
Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
