KEY POINTS:
The decision by police to charge Taito Phillip Field on 14 counts of bribery is a mixed blessing for the Government. Any glimmer of credibility he thought he could bring to a new party that could draw Pacific Island votes away from Labour is gone.
The best hope he and his potential conservative Christian allies had was that he wouldn't be charged and they could present him as a victim of the godless Helen Clark. On Thursday she was able to distance herself and tactfully say Field was innocent until proven guilty by the courts.
The downside for Labour of his being charged is that it exposes Clark's first inquiry finding - Field had no grounds to answer politically - flawed at best and morally corrupt at worse.
Opinion polls are showing a huge drop in public support for Labour and, more unnerving for them, a significant move away from Clark to John Key as preferred prime minister. If Field is able to force his former Labour parliamentary colleagues into the witness box in his trial it will further taint the Labour Party.
The slow ebbing away of Labour's support is a mood thing, and it will be difficult for them to win it back. The level of support the Maori Party can win away from Labour will determine the next election.
I attended an extraordinary series of Te Wananga O Aotearoa student graduations on Friday that suggested a growing political confidence and independence in Maori that I haven't seen before.
A couple of years ago you could have assumed the Wananga was discredited and finished. At the last election the politicians put the boot into the Wananga, with the honourable exceptions of the Green and Maori Parties. Labour responded by withholding funding, creating a cash crisis and giving them the legitimacy to send in corporate accountants to grab control of the institution and sack its founders.
Since then, Maori within and outside the Wananga have fought a running guerrilla war against their Pakeha occupiers. It appears the tide is turning. Despite the smearing of the Wananga's reputation by opportunistic politicians, both Maori and non-Maori student numbers are well up.
This has allowed the Wananga to trade its way out of its difficulties and dependence on the state and will see it finish this year with a small surplus.
Interestingly, 13 of our polytechnics are in serious deficit and several will require the Government to bail them out to survive. Millions of dollars have flowed from the Government to bolster shortfalls at universities. But don't hold your breath waiting for our politicians to attack the management of these institutions. The apparent double standards aren't lost on Maori.
As a former Wananga Council member, I was aware the quality and relevance of the Wananga's programmes have always been recognised, and I was blown away by the diversity and quality of the staff and students at Wananga graduations in Tauranga on Friday. In that city alone, 500 students graduated. Bentham Ohia, the Wananga's pouhere (chief executive), tells me that they have 45 mass graduations around the country, with hundreds of students at each event.
As I expected there were a wide range of skill trades and business study graduates. What I didn't know was the Wananga runs bilingual social services courses and degrees and they are the provider of social workers in the country. One senior tutor told me that enrolments for other social work courses around the country were down; the Wananga's enrolments were way up.
I was surprised to learn that half of the graduates were non-Maori. Even half of the Te Aro graduates were Pakeha. Ohia said this wasn't unusual. Given that they have had 45,000 graduates in Te Aro over the past five years, it is an astonishing contribution.
The most moving example of the Wananga's contribution to New Zealand must have been the graduation of 60 kaumatua and kuia (elders) with their diplomas in Maori history, language, culture, customs and traditions. The oldest was 87.
This older generation's experience was that as children they were punished for speaking Maori at school. Many of these elders have had to wait 40 to 60 years to have their culture legitimised. Their formal study of genealogy, history, traditions, culture and language allows them to enhance their rightful place as guardians of the community and to pass these taonga on to the next generations.
Most of these kaumatua and kuia were experiencing their first formal educational achievement.
I have always understood the mission of the Wananga - that emancipation of people comes through knowledge, and education is a gift a student should receive as of right. That's why the Wananga won't restrict its programmes to Maori as the former Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, tried to force on it, or charge fees for its main programmes.
The recovery of the Wananga is phenomenal. I spoke to several tutors who had no doubt the campaign and occupation of the Wananga was all about political control by Labour. They agreed National wasn't any better, but ominously said it was no worse.
Field's alleged antics will hurt Labour on a superficial level. But it's the 250,000 past students and tutors of the Wananga who may ultimately cause Labour to lose the next election. Maori call it Utu.
