The birth of an intriguing new political enterprise took place on Thursday afternoon at the Destiny Church headquarters at 25 Druce Rd, a wide, bleak street in Manukau. Media arrived as workmen were putting the finishing touches to the church carpark. Someone went at it with a pick, someonesat dozing on a steamroller. Build it, and they will park.
A row of seats had been placed in a small room dominated by the taxidermist's art. The heads of two stags were mounted on either side of a dreary landscape painting, and the heads of five wild boar stared down from the wall. One of the pigs had such a jovial expression that it looked as though it was in on a joke.
On the stroke of 1.30pm Brian Tamaki, a Bishop, entered with his wife Hannah, who is not a Bishop. He wore a black jacket with zips on the sleeves, a black open-necked shirt, black pants, and shiny black shoes on his quite small feet.
He announced that the press conference was being held to launch a political party. He spoke in a thin, nervous voice. His eyes flickered. He held his hands together and stood with his little feet quite close together. There has always been an appealing vulnerability to Tamaki; he is one of the least charismatic pastors of all times, a fragile soul, no great orator, someone with a rich internal life and wild imagination – it was no doubt to his tastes that a chandelier in the room had been made out of antlers - but not a lot of front. He's sensitive. He's more Cliff Richard than Keith Richards.
Hannah Tamaki is the new head of Destiny Church party Coalition New Zealand. Photo / Mike Scott
And then he said, "I'd like to do something interesting!" He excused himself, stood to one side, and up leaped Jumpin' Jack Flash herself, the bride of the apostle, that bristling, animated force of rage and purpose, Hannah Tamaki, to take over proceedings and announce that she would be the leader of something called Coalition New Zealand.
Impossible to imagine vague, cosmic Bishop Tamaki in the bear pit of Parliament. Easy to think of Hannah Tamaki letting rip, a creature of scorn and moral blather, full of accusation and complaint. "I'm not happy," she told reporters. "I'm concerned...I'm worried...I'm upset...I'm fed up."
She raved for a while about nothing of particular substance or detail, except when she made a public appeal to Alfred Ngaro, the National MP tipped to contest the next election with some kind of Christian party. "I feel you are looking for a place to call home," she said. "Come and sit with me."
But who else will sit with Tamaki, and join Coalition New Zealand in its bid to bring family values and other condemnations to political life? Could she name any candidates? It was all too early for that, she said, and too early for policies, or statistics: "I could rattle off statistics!", she said, and then rattled on about something else.
In fact the faces of Coalition New Zealand were in the room the whole time. The five mounted boar all looked like excellent candidates. As well as the one with a jovial demeanour, there was one that wore an expression of furious indignation, another that looked quite pompous, another had a tender, dreamy face, and the fifth, frankly, looked like a total moron.
The conference lasted 29 minutes. Outside, someone went at it with a leaf blower, someone sat sleeping soundly on a steamroller. A plane flew low overhead. Its shadow passed over the carpark. It looked like a stain, and then it was gone.
