KEY POINTS:
Perhaps Parekura Horomia is skipping breakfast in an effort to slim - if so, it isn't doing anything for his brain power.
The Minister for Maori Affairs made the year's most dubious political remark - thus far - when on Thursday he responded to Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia's queries about 20,000 Kiwi children going to school hungry by suggesting that, among other things, some were failing to eat breakfast because they were looking after their figures.
While it is true that among the nation's more affluent and well-parented teens, there will indeed be a few refusing the muesli box so they can fit their skinny jeans, Horomia knew full well this was not whom Turia was referring to. Responding to such a serious and heartbreaking issue as child poverty with glibness is something Prime Minister Helen Clark should have stamped out well before election year. The sight of our most amply proportioned cabinet minister suggesting hungry children are simply dieting was reminiscent of a certain French consort's exhortation to "let them eat cake".
In Parliament, Act leader Rodney Hide intervened and suggested Horomia correct his answer because he surely didn't mean what he had said. But Horomia did not correct his response, arguing instead that child poverty had reduced dramatically under Labour.
As subsequent reports revealed, recent surveys show half of Maori households are sometimes, or often, running out of food. One in five Maori families is sometimes or often using food banks. Forty per cent of Pacific children go to school without breakfast - and not for slimming purposes. Those figures will only increase in the current climate of rising food, mortgage and petrol prices.
Julie Helson from the overstretched KidsCan charitable trust which distributes food, shoes and raincoats to the nation's most deprived children, says she is feeding 7000 children regularly at primary school - with another 12,000 awaiting assistance. Some arrive at school having not eaten for 12 hours. In a recent case in Rotorua, KidsCan was told a young girl had not eaten for 24 hours before being fed at school.
The reasons, Helson says, are clear - poverty in many cases. Bad money management in others and, of course, bad parenting. Her plea? We should fill children's tummies at school first, and then look into the reasons why. Horomia's response to the issue, she told Radio New Zealand, floored her.
The Minister's gaffe, though, is symptomatic of Labour's wider issues. The party of the left sounds increasingly smug or out of touch with its core constituents. During its three terms in power, a number of its MPs have forgotten who put them there. Who hasn't been forgotten, however, are the deal makers who ensured Labour's power. The party is, in fact, bending too far backwards to accommodate a man fast becoming their greatest liability - Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters.
The signing of the Free Trade Agreement with China last week is to be applauded, despite the misgivings of those who see only an endorsement of China's track record on human rights. But Labour's handling of the fallout from Peter's ill-advised politicking over the issue is not. Despite Clark's assurances that it was perfectly acceptable for the man who represents New Zealanders around the world to oppose the Chinese deal, it is not. Trade Minister Phil Goff, who signed the deal in China, showed more gumption in private at least, by reportedly describing criticisms of the deal as "bullshit".
It was left to United Future leader Peter Dunne to publicly reflect the mood of the country when he described Peters' dual roles as Foreign Affairs minister and leader of a party intent on stirring nationalistic fervour as untenable.
Clark's grip on her own party and the factions which make up her government has looked less than steely over the past month. Peters will only run more amok in the lead-up to the election as he fights for his own survival. Her efforts to accommodate his pronouncements, and those of his party, are increasingly difficult to justify.
