Editorial: Bring racial issues out of the closet

Anxious political strategy sessions will be under way in the Beehive as each successive opinion poll confirms the impact of National's break with what has been a fairly bipartisan policy towards Maori. The Government's initial response has been to point out, wherever possible, that the programmes National now criticises were in many cases initiated under a National Government. But that, of course, is well known; it is one reason probably that National's previous leader, Bill English, could get no traction with the issue.

The party's new leader, Don Brash, was not part of a previous National Government and is quite prepared to disown its contribution to Maori "separatism", as he sees it. More to the point, the public by and large do not care for bipartisanship where the only effect of that is to take the subject out of electoral contention and thus deny the public a say on it. That has been the case with Maori policy, as it was for the economic reforms since 1984. Neither of the major parties ever campaigned unequivocally for further economic reform, any more than they campaigned loudly for special recognition of Maori.

These two policies have been the dominant underlying themes in the country's economic and social trends of the past 20 years and both have been essentially "elitist" conceptions of the national interest, lacking prior popular endorsement. Both left a sense of alienation in the electorate and an opportunity for political exploitation. This Labour Government came to power by exploiting popular fatigue with economic reform. National now bids to return to office by appealing to a widespread sense that Maori are being accorded too much special treatment and are gaining a position of privilege in national affairs.

The Government, as it casts about for an effective response, tries to play the economic reform card again. It urges the public to look at the rest of Dr Brash's programme. Along with the Maori policies, it claims, would come more of the previous economic medicine. That Dr Brash would not deny. He is one political leader who seems prepared to put all his intentions - economic and social - out front. The Prime Minister should do the same.

Rather than try to deflect the Maori debate on to economic issues, she should recognise that Maori policy is no longer a subject that can be politically neutralised. It falls to her Government to try to reconcile the public to the fact that Maori do indeed have a special place in the country's affairs. It is a tall order for any politician and it may be history's measure of Helen Clark.

To answer the genuine concerns of non-Maori she must first challenge the idea promoted by Dr Brash that special programmes for Maori are socially "divisive". She must see that the public considers the alternative possibility, that the withdrawal of special recognition of Maori at this stage in our history would be much more divisive. She has begun to allude to this, insisting that policies recognising ethnic diversity are more socially cohesive than National's proposals would be.

The point is hard to press home, though, because it raises the spectre of civil unrest, the ultimate fate of societies that fail to accommodate all their ethnic elements satisfactorily. Many Pakeha say they fear that racially separate arrangements will have dire consequences. But they should think equally about the consequences of forcing a growing indigenous minority into a system that refuses to recognise ethnic distinctions.

Dr Brash is not a shallow, ethnocentric xenophobe, which is where Labour's comparison with Australia's Pauline Hanson fails. Dr Brash is coolly offering a reasoned argument. Equally coolly, equally reasonably, Labour must answer it.