Claire Trevett: Timing matters in comedy, and politics

In comedy, timing is everything as Prime Minister John Key found this week when, by way of acknowledging he had angered Tuhoe, he joked that he was fortunate he had dined with Ngati Porou rather than Tuhoe, "in which case I would have been dinner".

It did not go down well with Tuhoe, which only days before had learned the brutal lesson that timing is also everything in Treaty settlements.

The tribe - already mistrustful of the Crown - was taken by surprise when it had the pearl of its hoped-for settlement - ownership of Te Urewera National Park - pulled from its grasp in an apparent last-minute Sunday decision by the Prime Minister.

It had expected to sign off on the agreement yesterday after two long years of negotiations.

If the decision appalled Tuhoe, it also took the Maori Party by surprise.

It came a day after Key and Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson exhorted members at a National Party regional conference to trust them and not be sucked in by attempts to undermine measures for Maori by the likes of Winston Peters. The comments reiterated Key's Waitangi Day address, in which he said his government would not buckle to "extremists" on either side of the racial divide.

Had it been situation normal, National could have been able to get the ownership handover through with little murmuring.

By and large the wider populace is accustomed to the settlement process bubbling along and significant steps such as vesting ownership of the volcanic cones in Auckland-based iwi and allowing co-management of the Waikato River have so far resulted in little public reaction.

But the middle year of a parliamentary term is delivery year for support parties. So, in quick succession, the Maori Party wins began to snowball. In February, the Maori flag flew alongside the New Zealand ensign for the first time. Then the Government agreed to the Declaration of Indigenous People's Rights, Whanau Ora became a reality and the Government's proposals to replace the Foreshore and Seabed Act and allow Maori to claim customary title became a talking point.

Simultaneously, public attention was again beginning to focus on settlements as National stepped up the pace to try to reach its goal of settling them by 2014.

Slather on other issues with great potential to blow up in the Government's face - mining and a Budget including increases to the goods and services tax - and the crucible had got red hot. It perhaps didn't help that Key was overseas on a succession of trips while the discomfort was fermenting within his own Cabinet ranks as well as in National's wider constituency. But by the time he returned, it was clear something had to give.

So Key decided to call for a cup of tea.

The Maori Party's horror was at the way the Government dealt with it more than the decision itself. Party co-leader Tariana Turia was appalled by what she saw as an unjustifiable "loss of nerve" and lack of integrity by Key in his dealings with Tuhoe after two years of good-faith negotiating and hard work by the iwi.

Key didn't help matters when he purported to speak on her behalf the day after she had released a statement which was strongly critical of him. He said she was "fine" with the decision.

The timing of the PM's move makes it clear it was largely a political decision, but it did help that he had very solid policy grounds to point to in making it.

Transferring such a significant part of the conservation estate as a national park to Tuhoe would have raised the expectations of iwi still negotiating Treaty settlements as well as perhaps aggrieving those who have already done so.

It was not a good time to upset the Maori Party. Next week, it will have to support a Budget likely to include an increase in GST - something that is anathema to it.

But this is also a lesson that it is not always the Maori Party that is the uncomfortable one in the governing arrangement.

A few months into the new Government, Key pointed out at his post-Cabinet press conference that it was a two-way street and that National, too, would have to take some risks for the sake of its Maori Party partner.

The truth of that comment has now become blatantly clear and the Maori Party knows it should not underestimate those risks to National.

Hence Turia's praise for National's "courage" in backing Whanau Ora, the Maori Party initiative that will see providers funded to deal with whanau in a far-less-prescriptive manner than happens at present. At a philosophical level, Whanau Ora - a diluted form of self-determination for Maori families - fits well with National's philosophy of personal responsibility.

But at a practical level it is a potential minefield and National knows it.

The foreshore and seabed issue also has the ability to cause problems for National.

On a smaller scale, National also took a risk in agreeing to Turia's desire to significantly hike tobacco taxes - a move hopelessly at odds with its own less-tax, no-nanny-state philosophy.

So Turia did not agree with the Tuhoe decision but she did understand it was causing National significant discomfort which it could not perhaps afford. She should perhaps be relieved that Key chose to release some of the pressure on National by targeting Tuhoe rather than doing a backtrack on a Maori Party-driven measure.

In doing so, he made reassuring noises to National's rank and file but affected only one tribe, rather than pulling the rug from beneath wider Maoridom.

As for Tuhoe, settlement now seems a long way off, although it hopes to begin talks again next week. Key last week acknowledged it could take some time and indicated National could back off from the 2014 goal given the complexity not only of Tuhoe's claim but others such as Ngapuhi's.

Mr Key has emphasised the creative nature of his government and Treaty settlements themselves have become more creative over the past decade. Tuhoe has already rejected simple co-management but there are other possibilities. One example is the Ngati Whare agreement, which gifts a block of forestry land to iwi to be re-gifted to a trust to which both the iwi and the Crown appoint trustees. It is likely to be variations on such themes that the Crown returns to now.

As for the hand-wringing over the Prime Minister's joke about Tuhoe looking to have him for dinner, the most appropriate response was that from Maori Party MP Ururoa Flavell, who suggested it was unwise given the current hurt but added drily, "It's probably correct".