Matt McCarten: Unlikely bedfellows make marriage work

Hands up all those who never thought the Maori Party could coalesce with a National-Act duo, and are now surprised that it has worked far better than they imagined.

The experience of smaller coalition partners in governments under MMP hasn't been a happy one and conventional wisdom would be the National-Maori arrangement would blow up in quick time.

It now seems the novice John Key has learned from his predecessors' mistakes and has worked hard on the Maori Party relationship. The result is we have the most stable coalition arrangement under MMP yet.

It helps that Key won a big election mandate and his personal popularity is high. Not having to have any irritants from any other party in his Cabinet is a first for any MMP prime minister and must make it so much easier to govern.

It is apparent that offering minor parties ministerial portfolios they want provided they sit outside Cabinet is a clever arrangement that works for both parties - governing for National is unfettered and the junior party gets their "baubles of office" without being too close to be compromised.

The coup for National, of course, was getting the Maori Party. I remember the Left being shocked at the time. But if it had been paying attention it wouldn't have been. In many ways it's a perfect relationship.

In previous governments NZ First was National's electoral competitor, as was the Alliance with Labour. The Maori Party on the other hand is Labour's electoral competitor, not National's. As long as Key maintains a constructive relationship with the Maori Party he will maintain National's political hegemony for the foreseeable future.

Those who believed it would be an incredible move for the Nats to invite Maori activists into their tent have forgotten Jenny Shipley's government included Alliance defector Alamein Kopu, plus the Maori radical faction from NZ First.

It's a truism that in many ways it's easier for Maori to get what they want from National than from Labour. The whole reaction of the Labour government at the time to the seabed and foreshore issue was purely driven by its fear of Pakeha backlash.

National's consent to a ministerial review and agreement to reconsider the whole foreshore debacle would never have been done under a Labour government. It's amazing not one Parliamentary party last week opposed its repeal. Labour did a complete u-turn, with Phil Goff pledging his co-operation.

If this doesn't convince you Maori are now seen as major electoral players nothing will. The only dissenting voice is from political impotent Winston Peters. Providing Pita Sharples keeps making cooing noises about everyone being able to access beaches and Maori won't be in line for big compensation payouts then even rednecks won't care. If this is managed right, the electoral dividend to the Maori Party will be huge.

But it gets better than that. Backroom whispers are that the Maori Party may even win National support, under certain circumstances, to having Maori seats on Auckland's Supercity council. If that happens, then no one can argue against the fact it was the right decision for the Maori Party to sign up with Key last year.

Maori haven't forgotten Labour's sneering at the seabed and foreshore hikoi; its invisibility when Don Brash attacked "Maori privilege", nor its negative campaign against Te Wananga o Aotearoa.

Goff was never a public part of those events so is not tainted. But Key knows as long as he concedes enough benefits to his new best Maori friends they will keep their seats and give him a permanent majority in Parliament.

The desertion of many Maori from Labour to the Maori Party is a bit like a failed marriage where the spurned partner blossoms in a new relationship and the old spouse belatedly realises what a fool they were letting them go. Goff and his party have a lot of catching up to do. Supporting the scrapping of the foreshore and seabed legislation is a good start.