Editorial: Coalition is shakier by the day

Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

The biggest worry about the state of the relationship between National and the Maori Party is that the Prime Minister doesn't seem to have noticed that there is a problem.

The Maori Party is openly admitting that the confidence-and-supply agreement it has with National is under threat. The coalition that is not a coalition is looking creakier by the day and it is hard to see it lasting the winter, much less the full Parliamentary term.

Three days after his announcement that iwi ownership of the Urewera National Park was off the table in Treaty negotiations with Tuhoe, the PM was cracking a joke about cannibalism.

He told a conference in Auckland that he had enjoyed Ngati Porou hospitality earlier in the week but that if it had been Tuhoe hosting him "I would have been dinner, which wouldn't have been quite so attractive."

The throwaway remark was dispiriting evidence of Key's tin ear for Maori sentiment. The tribe plainly feels deeply betrayed by the unilateral announcement, as does Maori party co-leader Tariana Turia.

The latter's feelings are scarcely to be wondered at given that the Maori Party's agreement makes specific mention of a relationship of "good faith and no surprises" and "consultation ... in a timely fashion to ensure Maori Party views can be incorporated into final decision-making".

Even in the absence of such specific provisions, the high-handedness of the announcement contravenes any notion of fair dealing: a process in which a key point is simply crossed off the agenda - by announcement to the news media, no less - does not merit the word "negotiation".

Adding insult to injury, Key told journalists that Turia was "totally fine" about the U-turn - an assessment the Maori Party leader immediately and hotly rejected.

Either Key was deliberately downplaying Turia's response for political reasons or he had dismally failed to read it. Either way it does not bode well for the health of the relationship.

The poor-taste joke suggests a PM more out of touch than cynical. He laughed off questions after the speech, saying that he thought the iwi would get the joke - which characterises any offence Tuhoe might feel as humourlessness.

But Tuhoe spokesman Tamati Kruger has made it plain that it was the joke's timing and context, not its content, that was problematic. A joke's reception depends entirely on the quality and depth of the relationship between the jokester and his target. To say Key's comment, a few days after a major slight, was ill-timed and misjudged is an understatement.

Tellingly, Turia has said that discussions within the Maori Party about whether it can continue its loose coalition arrangement with National "began on Sunday night" which was when Key told her about the Tuhoe decision. Key reads that as an idle threat at his peril.

Doubtless he has come under pressure from some quarters of his party to stop what they see as excessive concessions to Maori after the promised Foreshore and Seabed review, the Whanau Ora programme and the backing of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

But Key this week seemed to have completely lost the political instinct that enabled him to strike the three-party coalition deal after the election.

The damage the week's events have done to National's relationship with the Maori Party is almost certainly irreparable and is more than likely to be fatal to the agreement.

National does not need them to govern but relying on Act alone to command a majority in the House will come with a hefty political price tag. Sooner rather than later, National will be counting the cost of its actions this week.