John Armstrong: Nervous time listening to praise from ambivalent boss

John Tamihere looked nervous and fraught yesterday. It was easy to understand why.

There he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Helen Clark in the Prime Minister's office listening to his leader heap praise on him as someone who had always acted honourably and had a strong future.

Was this the same Helen Clark who just the day before had coldly confirmed he would not be returning to the Cabinet before next September's election?

Helen Clark has been at her ambivalent best over the Waipareira Affair - drawing a line in the sand one moment and then pulling back.

Detailing her Cabinet reshuffle on Monday, she left no doubt that Mr Tamihere would not get his job back before the election.

After yesterday's report by Douglas White, QC, which essentially cleared Mr Tamihere of wrongdoing, she was far more cagey, saying she would talk to her former minister once the Serious Fraud Office had completed its separate inquiries into the Waipareira Trust.

But that reassurance could not hide one obvious, uncomfortable truth.

It is in Mr Tamihere's interests for the Serious Fraud Office to report as soon as possible.

It is in the Prime Minister's interests for its findings to be delayed as long as possible so she does not have to make a decision on Mr Tamihere's future and accede to likely pressure from her Maori MPs to reinstate him before the election.

It suits her that he remain in limbo.

That way she can keep his messy dealings with the Waipareira Trust from damaging her Government, while keeping him alive to possible reinstatement so he does not feel so isolated he gets fed up and starts doing damage anyway.

Mr Tamihere's popularity, within Maoridom and outside, means she cannot afford to get offside with him, not least because of her Government's one-seat majority.

She has to be nice to him - and the White report was the cue for a display of solidarity.

Getting Mr Tamihere to appear with her and her deputy, Michael Cullen, at yesterday's press conference curbed any inclination for him to say something which might embarrass her.

She reciprocated by putting the best possible gloss on the White report findings.

Mr White's thorough investigation did find that Mr Tamihere would have been "prudent" to have declared the Toyota Landcruiser gifted by the Waipareira Trust on the register of ministers' assets.

But as far as the Prime Minister was concerned, that was not a "hanging offence".

She did not mention a further obstacle to his rehabilitation - a possible Inland Revenue investigation into omissions in his tax returns.

That will take time. With the election barely nine months way, time is not on Mr Tamihere's side.

If he is still out before the election, it will be that much harder for him to get back in afterwards.

There may be fewer slots in the Cabinet if Labour has to accommodate a coalition partner.

And there is no shortage of ambitious Labour backbenchers willing to trample over him in the rush for jobs.

The Labour caucus, which elects its Cabinet ministers, will have to be 100 per cent satisfied that no more skeletons are clanking in the Tamihere closet.

The odds still favour Mr Tamihere getting back into the Cabinet.

But nothing is certain in politics, and Mr Tamihere yesterday had the look of someone seeing his future slipping away.