Dialogue: First Lady Titewhai makes the rules

GORDON McLAUCHLAN asks who was in control of Waitangi Day, the present and the future.

Politics is the art of the possible, remarked Otto von Bismarck 130 years ago, and the definition has been hallowed ever since by democratic politicians and their groupies because it vindicates sidestepping ethical considerations as sadly necessary in what they would call the real world.

It's another way of saying that in politics you get away with what you can.

I thought of this during the week as Titewhai Harawira once again had Helen Clark at her mercy, demonstrating her extraordinary capacity for seizing the moment. Who was in control of Waitangi Day, the present and the future?

Titewhai, with that tough, shrewd visage, was the one to watch. On those two days anyway she was again the Presence, the First Lady, the one who, albeit briefly, really mattered. Clark was a kind of limp symbol, an unaccustomed role.

Waitangi week is always intensely interesting. Historians and other commentators trot out their reconstructions of the past and their idealisations of the future. Most, well, amusing I guess, was the version of David Armstrong, described as "involved in researching treaty claims for the Crown and claimants since 1989". Is that acting for the plaintiff and the defendant? His historical perspective had every Maori and Pakeha involved over 162 years as clear-eyed and rational about what was going on. Oh that history was ever that tidy!

Perhaps even more amusing was the television commentator who told us in a revelatory way that the old guard of protesters was giving way to the young. She could have asked Donna Awatere (also shepherding Clark) if that has not always been so.

Maori resilience is extraordinary, and their place in the Pakeha mind protean. Chronologically they have been: (1) Pragmatic, tough-minded traders - Samuel Marsden decided they had "sprung from some dispersed Jews at some period or other" because of similarity between selected religious customs and "they have, like the Jews, a great natural turn for traffic; they will buy and sell anything they have got".

(2) Ferocious, skilled and respected opponents in battle in the 1860s.

(3) Objects of romantic pity as their demise was predicted at the end of last century.

(4) Resurgent in the 1970s, fingering our collective conscience in search of expiation for very real Pakeha sins.

(5) Working the political numbers now that they have made their comeback a more extraordinary comeback than achieved by any other indigenous people swamped by European culture in the 18th and 19th centuries. (Would it be fair to suggest that resurgence was aided by Britain's insistence on a treaty in 1840?)

I 'D like to pay tribute to two colleagues: Angela D'Audney and Richard Boock, an unlikely pair associated only for the purposes of this article.

In the 1980s, I shared a TVNZ office with Angela. She was fronting the arts programme Kaleidoscope and I was a contract reporter for a couple of days a week. At first, briefly, I found her difficult to work with, as many did, but I learned to ignore her during a tantrum. I switched off.

One day after a production meeting's proceedings had incensed her, she ranted away, got no answer from me, and then leaned down and snapped into my ear as I sat typing: "Why don't you get mad with them? Are you a wimp?"

"Either that," I said with a straight face, "or a cool dude."

After a minute, she laughed and said: "Teach me how to do that."

Another time we were in the office packing up to go home. We lived not far from each other but found neither of us had a car or a taxi chit.

"Why don't we get a bus?" I asked.

"A bus! A bus!" she shouted, looking at me with incredulity as at an imbecile. "Are you out of your mind? People stare at you on buses for half a bloody hour." She stormed out.

She took no prisoners, Angela, but I became fond of her, respected her feistiness and tough professionalism although I saw her only a couple of times over the past dozen years for brief chats when we were on our own. When television performers get together in groups, their tender egos meet like fire and water with lots of steam and hissy-fits. And that becomes tiresome.

And then there's Richard Boock. I've never met him but I admire him enormously. He's that rare creature in New Zealand sports journalism - a professional first and a fan second. In that way he serves the reader, not the sports establishment - very refreshing and terribly important as professional sport becomes entertainment but pretends it is something nobler than that.

Here's a thought. If you had bet a lot of money on Australia winning the one-day tournament, or even just making the final, would you be able to sue Stephen Fleming? You'd certainly feel like it. What if next time a team throws a game to get a preferred opponent into the final? It's a thin line.

By the way, I haven't heard Murray Deaker and the other sport-worshippers lately, but I wonder how they feel about the hours they've spent lamenting New Zealand's tall-poppy syndrome while praising Australia's readiness to fete and idolise its sports heroes. Ask the Waugh brothers about that one.