KEY POINTS:
Hone Harawira did this morning what he normally does when he creates a bit of a storm.
He holds a press conference, stands by his statement, acknowledges the "telling off" he has just had from his elders in the Maori Party for getting personal - and gets a bigger platform for the original issue.
Harawira still believes Australian Prime Minister John Howard is "racist bastard" for his plan to attack rampant sexual abuse of children in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory by the state seizing control of the communities under five-year leases.
The concern of politicians in New Zealand has been more about the breach of a convention of not commenting on the domestic politics of another country.
Helen Clark made great play of the interference angle at midday when she talked to reporters ahead of Labour's caucus but in reality, it is a convention of Governments, not smaller parties.
The Maori Party feels no allegiance to that convention, feeling a much stronger allegiance to indigenous issues no matter where they occur.
The Green Party too, has little compunction about commenting on environmental events in Australia or military events involving the United States.
Interestingly, while Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia also took the line that what the Australian government does to its Aborigines is "their business" he also said: "I struggle with what John Howard has done".
There is little sense of outrage indignation at the slur against Howard in New Zealand partly because it was Hone Harawira saying it and it is hardly unusual behaviour from him, but also because people share Horomia's concern.
If Howard is not a "racist bastard" he is "a very clever bastard" when it comes to winning elections.
There is more than a strong suspicion that the way he has approached the dire problem is a cynical election ploy.
Today's Newspoll results shows Howard has virtually recovered the 12-point gap between him and Labor's Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister and is now just one point away.
One of the factors in the recovery, as The Australian editorial puts it, is "strong leadership on Aboriginal affairs".
That is the result despite Rudd taking a bipartisan approach.
If the potency of race politics in Australia is the same as it is in New Zealand, and Labor had opposed Howard on his approach, who knows? Howard may well be ahead.
The whole incident puts me in mind of a less serious story involving transtasman relations that I covered in 1997.
Tau Henare who was Maori Affairs Minister at the time was spread across the front page for calling the Australian government "a pack of mongrels".
He was demanding an apology because of revelations in a secret Australian government briefing paper that contained rather frank assessments of the various leaders around the Pacific - that an Aussie journo had found lying on a table in a Cairns hotel.
It was marked AUSTEO (Australian Eyes Only).
Henare was outraged because the dossier described his leader at the time, then Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, as "a loose cannon" and "an opportunist" who would not be above exploiting New Zealand sensitivities towards Australia.
Peters apologised for Henare's remarks and steered the blame away from the Australian Government towards what he called "dingoistic" bureaucrats.
The name game has a long transtasman history.
