Cool off, Labour tells Tamihere

John Tamihere and Helen Clark were happy to get their heads together last September, but Mr Tamihere was apparently in tears during yesterday's meeting with the Prime Minister. Picture / Fotopress

Labour's hierarchy has advised volatile MP John Tamihere to take a week's leave after his stinging attacks on party colleagues.

Prime Minister Helen Clark has initially taken a protective stance in defence of Mr Tamihere in the interests of stability after his outburst in the monthly magazine Investigate.

Helen Clark and party president Mike Williams have advised Mr Tamihere to take a week off work, ostensibly to reflect on the situation.

But they will also require his absence to avoid any confrontation at the caucus this morning or precipitous action from him, such as a sudden resignation from an MP feeling isolated and under siege.

Mr Tamihere is thought to have been in tears when he talked to Helen Clark yesterday morning, expressing deep remorse at the publication of the article and saying he needed time to consider all his options.

But by last night there was no suggestion from any quarter that Mr Tamihere had yet felt the need to apologise to anyone.

Helen Clark later explained Mr Tamihere's views as being the result of the stress and financial hardship he had suffered through a Serious Fraud Office inquiry, and the need to sell his house to pay for his legal and accounting team. He moved to a smaller, cheaper house at the weekend. It is understood he has been advised to seek counselling.

The interview reveals an MP who despises many of his colleagues and Labour's important union and gay sectors, resents the influence of women in the party, suggests that Labour dupes its coalition colleagues into backing laws and saves his finest compliments for National finance spokesman John Key.

It shatters the image of unity that Helen Clark has assiduously fostered in the build-up to the election and the party's feel-good effects from its weekend congress.

"In this outfit, it's all rosy on the outside, not the inside," Mr Tamihere told the magazine.

But Helen Clark said the article was more damaging to Mr Tamihere, the MP for Tamaki Makaurau, than it was to Labour.

The interview was given two days after the announcement of the Labour list, in which Mr Tamihere's friend, Police Minister George Hawkins, was given a low place. Last year, Mr Tamihere and caucus colleague Clayton Cosgrove had planned to resign if Mr Hawkins was dumped from the Cabinet in the December reshuffle. He was kept on.

Mr Tamihere says he did not know he was being reported, but Investigate editor Ian Wishart says a tape recorder was on the lunch table and there was no suggestion the interview was off the record.

Helen Clark has suggested that Mr Tamihere had too much to drink during the lunch, but Mr Wishart says the MP had only half a glass of wine.

Despite her sympathetic explanation, Helen Clark has made it clear that she expects Mr Tamihere to make amends.

"He's going to have to work out how he relates to his colleagues," she told the post-Cabinet press conference yesterday.

"I don't think there's any clear suggestion he might resign. He's got a whole lot of options open to him and one is - if you want a future in politics - to be a team player."

Mr Tamihere is not believed to have reached a view that he needs to apologise to colleagues such as gay Cabinet minister Chris Carter (whom he called "queer" and "a tosser"), Steve Maharey ("smarmy"), Helen Clark's chief adviser, Heather Simpson ("dangerous"), or David Cunliffe (described as having "naked ambition").

Helen Clark herself was described as "emotional", but she was not expecting an apology.

"I'll leave it to you to judge ... which of us is the more emotional. I frankly couldn't give a toss what people say about me."

The interview was held a week after Mr Tamihere was cleared by the Serious Fraud Office of wrong-doing in his previous job as chief executive of the Waipareira Trust.

He stood aside from the Cabinet while two inquiries were held into the trust.

Helen Clark had indicated that Mr Tamihere would return to the Cabinet if Labour led the next government, but yesterday said he would have to regain caucus goodwill.

"Without exception, every colleague whom I've spoken to today and who has contacted me has been very disappointed, because their view is that the Labour Party has stuck with John through very difficult times and serious allegations and they feel that sort of loyalty should be reciprocated."

What he said:

ON PM HELEN CLARK

"She is a very complex person, a very, very complex person. And she's been made complex by the range of sector groups she's been made to engage with and occasionally confront.

"She's no good with emotions. She goes to pieces. She'll fold on the emotional side and walk away or not turn up. She knows it's going to get emotional and it upsets her.

"We've never had a great relationship."

ON DEPUTY PM MICHAEL CULLEN

"We wouldn't survive without Cullen - he can cut a deal on a piece of legislation, he can change a single word to a piece of legislation without those other bastards [coalition partners] knowing about it."

ON STEVE MAHAREY

"You can spend hours with Maharey and walk away none the wiser but you've got screeds of paper full of notes. So there's operators like him who are very smarmy, very clever, but no substance. It's all about status."

ON HIS LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL

"Out of 51 in the caucus, 10 would back me to the hilt. Another 15 say they would, but who knows? But that's a solid block in caucus."

ON CLARK'S CHIEF OF STAFF HEATHER SIMPSON AND THE SFO REPORT

"Heather Simpson - Helen's assistant - wanted me in the tent as damaged goods.

"Too tough to lose completely. She's dangerous, a very dangerous woman."

ON HOMOSEXUALS, LESBIANS

"He [gay Cabinet minister Chris Carter] came up to me and harangues me, because he wasn't to be the first to get married on April 1, the tosser, and he says to me, 'But you're a minority John, you understand'.

"I've got a right to think that sex with another male is unhealthy and violating. I've got a right to think that.

"Helen has been brutalised by people who have called her lesbian, no children and all the rest of it. Her key adviser Heather Simpson is a butch."

ON UNIONS

"They don't deserve to have that level of influence [in Labour]. I'm going to lead a charge against that very shortly because the party has to be updated to reflect where our societies and communities are, as opposed to where they were."

ON THE 1993 ELECTION

"The Labour hierarchy purposely lost the election in 1993. They could have won in 1993. Mike Moore came within one seat. But the party pulled all their energy out of Auckland ... He's gone, Helen's it."

ON MEN'S HEALTH

"Men's problems are traditionally dealt with by the criminal justice system. Women, on the other hand, get a bloody Cartwright inquiry and get millions of dollars thrown at their breasts and cervixes."

ON BUSINESS

"Right now there are people writing cheques out in the corporate sector who wouldn't bloody cross the road to pee on us if we were on fire ... It's business. They've got to deal with this party."

ON NATIONAL'S FINANCE SPOKESMAN, JOHN KEY

"He's going to be very good. I've got the greatest regard for John. One more term, he's a formidable character. He's the one that scares the s ... t out of me the most out of the whole bunch. I could go to bed comfortable at night knowing that he was in charge - fair dinkum, not a problem."

ON THE PRESS GALLERY

"They're utterly and totally useless. And sycophantic. You know and I know there's no investigative journalism done in that bloody gallery. In the information age, we've got more ignorant people out there than there's ever been."

ON CAUCUS FACTIONS

I tried to set one up - we called it the Mods, for moderates from the class of 99. I'll tell you who screwed it up through his naked ambition: [David] Cunliffe. The boss sent emissaries out, let it be known it would be detrimental to the party and detrimental to our career prospects.