KEY POINTS:
Maori affairs Minister Dr Pita Sharples displayed his characteristic acumen when he raised at the quietest time of the holiday break the idea that the Maori flag should flutter alongside the New Zealand ensign from the top of the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day.
He correctly calculated that the matter would command column centimetres and talkback time in a season where news is in short supply. He further
knew that it would be a timely test of the National Government's commitment to a new partnership with Maori that had been signalled by Key's inclusion of the Maori Party in the governing coalition when the raw numbers did not require him to make such an arrangement.
Key, for his part, was equal to the shrewd manoeuvring. He said he had no problem with a Maori flag being flown - even adding that he thought it might fly at Parliament as well as on the bridge. And he elegantly put the ball back in Sharples' court by asking the minister to facilitate a consultation process with Maori and establish a consensus on which flag should fly.
It may seem like an attempt to duck the issue - which would not in itself be a bad thing, given the immediate and pressing problems the Government faces on the economic front - but the question implicit in the Prime Minister's response is a good one.
The flag that Sharples referred to, known in popular parlance as the tino rangatiratanga flag, is a recognisable emblem of handsome design but its provenance - it was designed by protest group Te Kawariki in 1990 as a symbol of reinvigorated demands for the recognition of rights enshrined in the treaty - must raise questions over its suitability in the present circumstances.
Maori activists rightly argue that the flag, its upper black and lower red panels separated by the graceful swirl of a stylised koru, is the one with which young, particularly urban, Maori most readily identify, and the extent to which it has penetrated the iconography of race relations since its creation is evidence of that. But it is another matter entirely to say that it is "the" Maori flag.
In considering alternatives, of which there are at least several, the problem lies in the very concept of Maori, a term unknown to the multi-tribal tangata whenua before European settlement.
Thus the so-called flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand, which was the country's first and has featured in the present discussion - may not be suitable since, its name notwithstanding, it was one that 25 northern tribes chose from three supplied by the Governor
of New South Wales. It can scarcely be described as a flag of all Maori, especially seeing that, in almost 175 years since, it has become little more than a historical relic. Many other designs, including ones of Te Kooti, of Tuhoe, or of the King movement, might be said to have equal claim.
The matter is, finally, one for Maori - certainly not for national referendum - and the discussion will usefully remind non-Maori New Zealand that Maori no more speak with one voice than Pakeha do. John Key, in saying that Maori need to deal with it, can only add to the mana he has earned by his decision to attend ceremonies at Te Tii Marae on February 6 - restoring a presence missing since 2004.
The idea that two flags should fly on Waitangi Day - or even all year round - is no more exceptionable than the notion that our national anthem be bilingual, which caused a stir in 1999 and is standard practice now. But, until the matter is widely canvassed and the choice of flag agreed on, the tino rangatiratanga flag does not have validity by default.
