Dialogue: A petty, vindictive stand on Waitangi

The last time I saw Helen Clark at Waitangi she was standing in a knot of Labour MPs on the edge of a small crowd lining the shore at Paihia beach.

It was mid morning on Waitangi Day, 1999. The great waka had been paddled across from the treaty grounds and the crowd, perhaps a couple of hundred Maori of all ages, were happily watching the paddlers prepare for the return journey. It was one of those rituals performed without a moment of self-consciousness or much fuss.

The carved sternpost of the waka has a flagpole attached. It awaited a flag. Eventually, a couple of the crew set about rigging one with no more ceremony than they would hoist a sail.

But as the national ensign fell open, a low rumble rippled through the crowd. "It's the wrong flag," murmured some middle-aged women near me.

All along the shore, the mood had changed. Contented chatter had given away to an awkward silence. There were a few nervous titters and the occasional jeer. When the conversation resumed, it was flat.

As the waka with its listless flag pulled away from the shore, a group at the marae entrance sang:

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream ...

There are just two great challenges confronting every government of this country. One is economic, the other is Maori.

Both in their own way are colonial legacies. We have still to find a range of exports capable of sustaining a living standard that was built on colonial trade preferences. And we have yet to make room for Maori to regain a sense of sovereignty in a post-colonial nation.

A year ago, when the present Government came to power, it promised very little on the economy. But having just recovered the Maori vote, it had every reason to rise to the challenge on that front.

It hasn't. More to the point, its leader hasn't. Her nerve failed at the Tariana Turia speech and over the past few months she has tried to neutralise the policy of Closing the Gaps, adding the phrase to her unspeakable list.

Now, having turned her back on Waitangi, she has ordered the Governor-General and the Royal New Zealand Navy to stay away this February 6.

It is not the act of a Prime Minister worthy of the name.

Unlike those who cheer her boycott, Helen Clark has been to Waitangi. She knows how important it is and she has seen Jenny Shipley find a way to return.

Unlike her sympathisers, Helen Clark got over the tears she shed in 1998 and does not pretend she is making a stand for women's right to speak in a powhiri.

She observed the same custom without comment at a South Island marae last Waitangi Day.

Whenever asked, she says she refuses to go north because there is "trouble in the family." She refers to a spat between Titewhai Harawira and one or two Labour leaders of the local marae.

It is sad that a Prime Minister should let that keep her from the national birthplace on the anniversaries of the treaty.

But to forbid the attendance of the Governor-General and the Navy is simply petty, vindictive, dog-in-the-manger.

It is true that previous Prime Ministers who took the official commemoration away from Waitangi have taken the Governor-General and the Navy with them. But I would have thought better of this one.

Previous decisions to forsake Waitangi have followed incidents involving a Governor-General. This decision follows two years of quietly successful effort to return.

Sir Michael Hardie Boys took a keen and conscientious part in the effort and so, this year, did the Navy. Despite the absence of a Prime Minister, there was again that sense of engagement between Maori and Pakeha in the place where it matters most.

I am genuinely surprised that Helen Clark obviously resented it. If there ever was good use to be made of a powerless figurehead it is on occasions when those who must make contentious decisions find the temperature too hot.

And after her treatment of Dover Samuels, Tariana Turia and the gaps this year, Helen Clark's reception at Waitangi this summer would have been uncomfortably warm.

Maori have a right to feel betrayed over the closing of the gaps. The phrase, as the Prime Minister is now anxious to confirm, was first used by Tau Henare, Minister of Maori Affairs in the previous Government. But the principle at its core goes much further back.

For a generation now, governments have known that what Maori want and need, far more than any particular programme, is a sense of self-determination - sovereignty, if you like. And the right to design and run their own schools, health centres and welfare schemes is a start.

Now the empowerment of Maori is to be played down, because, we are told, the Government detects a backlash. Dear me.

The Race Relations Conciliator had heard that Maori health clinics were turning away non-Maori. He hears from strange people.

One or two white liberals even confessed to racist stirrings, which meant, they said, it must be serious.

The Prime Minister has preferred to attribute her u-turn to the National Party "playing the race card" - the same party that by all accounts has been ineffectual this year. Where has she been?

Not at Waitangi, where things are real, honest, and there is no running away.