Editorial: Brash speech set tone for the year

Some years it is difficult to identify a single event that overshadowed all others in national life; this year it is easy. It came almost at the beginning. Don Brash ended the summer vacation in the way of National Party leaders with a "state of the nation" address to the Orewa Rotary Club. He used it to lay down a challenge to New Zealand's post-colonial accommodation of Maori aspirations and even he seemed surprised by the response. White New Zealand was audibly thrilled that somebody in his position would express views that many shared but were no longer heard in respectable circles.

Literally overnight, the political landscape changed. The next round of opinion polls showed a complete reversal of the main parties' positions. National had 45.5 per cent to Labour's 37 per cent in a February Herald-DigiPoll survey. Labour quickly tacked with the wind change, announcing an audit of all policies to flush out any Maori favouritism and a renewed determination to override the foreshore and seabed claim upheld the previous year by the Court of Appeal.

Maori responded with a hikoi to Parliament and Tariana Turia left the Labour Party to form the Maori Party, which made an immediate impact on the polls, reducing Labour's figures even as National was beginning to lose its post-Orewa momentum. But when the racial wind dropped in the latter half of the year, Labour recovered the lead with ease. The economy continued to run in the Government's favour and with Helen Clark at the helm and Michael Cullen on the purse strings, Labour remained a tight ship. Crew mistakes are quickly punished - Lianne Dalziel and John Tamihere were ejected from the Cabinet this year - and the course set is strictly middle-of-the-road. By the year's end it was Dr Brash who was tacking back, copying the Government's moves on funded superannuation and four weeks' holiday.

Even on its most sensitive initiatives, Labour remained resolutely in line with public acceptance. Its Civil Union Bill went as far as it dared in the direction of same-sex marriage, denying gay couples marriage by name but giving them a state with equal legal status. Opinion polls supported that compromise, as they did the prohibition of smoking in bars by the time that came into effect this month. The continued incarceration of Algerian Ahmed Zaoui brought criticism, but mostly from Labour's constituents. When its newly established Supreme Court decided to let him out, the Government took no steps to prevent it.

Nevertheless, it was a daring decision by the new court, in just its second case. Its first was a ruling that a political party, Act, could have an MP, Donna Awatere Huata, evicted from the House. If that decision was welcomed by all sides of Parliament, the Zaoui decision was not. The year was marked by unprecedented public sniping between the head of the new court, Chief Justice Sian Elias, and leading members of the Cabinet. Ostensibly it was over administrative and selection issues but underneath them an important constitutional tension is developing. Dame Sian and fellow judges, who made the foreshore and seabed decision before they were promoted from the Court of Appeal, have shown they are ready to invoke all the common law powers of "inherent jurisdiction" to read the law liberally.

It was not a glorious year for some proud public institutions. Several policemen, including two district commanders, are under investigation for an alleged rape a decade ago. The Waiouru Army cadet training school is under investigation for systematic cruelty. Top-rated Cambridge High School turned out to have maintained a no-failures policy with programmes of dubious educational value. And Holmes on TV One came to a bitter end.

It was the year an unknown warrior was repatriated, Pitcairn Island was on trial, Israeli agents came to court incognito and Jewish graves desecrated. A little girl taught us about meningococcal disease, the 111 system failed, the left won Auckland's local elections and Lord of the Rings swept the Academy Awards. But in the long run it is likely to be that Orewa speech that history registers. It was a backlash that became bipartisan and it may have provoked a new Maori political response. We will find out next year.