John Amstrong: Consigning Maori to history

COMMENT

Even at the best of times, being Maori in the National Party can be akin to paddling a waka up a waterfall.

You waste a lot of energy getting nowhere. And get swamped in the process.

Take the example of Georgina te Heuheu.

The first Maori woman to gain a law degree was warmly welcomed into National's fold in the mid-1990s as part of a recruitment drive deemed essential to broaden the party's appeal before the advent of MMP.

Now, National's sole Maori MP and former minister and front bencher has, with what remains of the party's Maori component, been jettisoned overboard in what is beginning to look like the most dramatic and aggressive rebranding of the party's image since Ruth Richardson dragged National to the right after the 1990 election.

Georgina te Heuheu stopped short of resigning her shadow Maori Affairs portfolio in the wake of Don Brash's "dangerous drift to racial separatism" speech on Tuesday night, in which he declared National would wipe out privileges based on race.

She should have resigned pronto. And not just in symbolic protest at her leader turning a deaf ear to the lone Maori voice in his caucus.

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from his speech is that she effectively no longer has a job because the Maori Affairs role is now redundant in National.

Not only did National's leader promise to unpick Treaty of Waitangi provisions now increasingly threaded through the country's laws and unwritten constitution.

Not only did he promise to abolish the Maori seats in Parliament.

Not only did he promise to end separate Maori representation on local authorities.

Those things were National policy under Bill English - as was Brash's promise to conclude treaty settlements quickly and for all time.

What is truly breathtaking in its implications is the speech's statement that there is no basis for special privileges based on race and no basis for government funding based on race.

This is a quantum shift given that governments for decades have operated specially targeted programmes to try to lift Maori out of the socio-economic mire.

Brash's prescription would not entail Maori getting less help than they do now. They would still continue to get more in government assistance than they contribute in taxes.

However, access to government-funded education, health services and housing would be based on need - not race. Maori would be treated like everyone else.

Brash is reluctant to go into detail, preferring the word "review" when asked whether he would abolish Te Puni Kokiri, the Ministry of Maori Development.

However, there would presumably no longer be justification for a token Minister of Maori Affairs. Or money for such bodies as the Maori Language Commission, or Te Mangai Paho, the Maori broadcasting funding agency.

The soon-to-go-to-air Maori Television Service would go off air - unless it got funding from New Zealand On Air.

And in Brash's market-driven universe, the channel's tiny audience share would not justify that agency stumping up the cash.

The list goes on. Above all, the whole gamut of special programmes provided by mainstream government departments - ranging from education scholarships to rehabilitation initiatives in prisons to stem Maori re-offending - would have to go.

(It did not take someone long to point out that the Reserve Bank offered scholarships to Maori during Brash's tenure as governor. He now regrets this.)

However, to rubbish Brash's speech as mere Maori-bashing is to miss the point.

Obviously, National is delighted the speech has been slammed by opponents, particularly Labour, which felt it could safely ignore Bill English's year-plus endeavour to get traction on the treaty.

A total of four Cabinet ministers publicly slammed the speech - an indication of Labour nervousness about race.

But the real import of the speech is the glimpses it gives into Brash's wider thinking and how he is going to toughen up National's stance on other issues - thus sharpening his image as a strong and decisive leader in the process.

Under the Brash policy agenda, Maori-run institutions such as kohanga reo, immersion schools and Maori primary health providers would still get government funding.

But this funding would not be granted by right. They would get money because they offer "choice" in education and health.

Another clue to Brash's big picture thinking is his statement that Maori socio-economic disparity will be addressed through "dignity-restoring" work-for-dole schemes.

Abolishing race-based government funding therefore dovetails with his push for "choice" in social services and drive for welfare reform - another two of the five priority areas that Brash has picked out to give National a far stronger definition in voters' minds.

The remaining two priorities are lifting people's economic aspirations and cracking down on criminals. Having dealt with race, Brash will be just as forthright as he was on Tuesday night when he addresses the four other priorities in speeches in coming months.

He is seeking to present a crystal-clear picture of what a National-led Government could be expected to do. And he intends drawing the various threads running through the five priority areas into a single succinct, marketable theme.

Helen Clark dismissed Tuesday's speech as another example of how there are too many parties on the centre-right chasing too few votes.

But the first stage of National's recovery strategy requires restoring its dominance on the centre-right. Only then can National confront Labour.

Tuesday's speech was a declaration of war against other centre-right parties.

Act will find itself increasingly crowded out of the marketplace by Brash's advocacy of core National beliefs.

There is a danger that Act will respond by adopting even more extreme positions. That could frighten centrist voters into thinking the fulcrum of a centre-right coalition is shifting ever more to the right.

Little wonder there is a growing clamour among National rank-and-file for a "merger" with Act - the polite way of saying "we want to absorb you because you are a nuisance".

Tuesday's speech is also bad news for Winston Peters, who has somehow managed to tap into Pakeha resentment with the treaty industry while quietly pitching for Maori votes.

Peters will find it much more difficult to play on both sides of the fence now that Brash has come down firmly on one side.

Which is why Georgina te Heuheu finds herself cut adrift, sacrificed for National's greater good.