Voters in next Saurday's Te Tai Tokerau byelection will decide the future of Hone Harawira's combustible political career, writes Claire Trevett.
He can be a genial bloke when he wants to, that Hone Harawira. He was stuck with the Herald for the day on his Kaitaia home turf and beyond an initial hand signal to ward off evil upon first meeting, he proved a good host.
By the afternoon, driving back from the tiny Hokianga township of Panguru, he was talking about his foot and his wife. He cannot run for long distances because as a child he stood on a pork bone which went right through his foot and poked out the top.
He got on to this topic while trying to explain why he, at 56, looked younger than his Maori Party rival, Solomon Tipene, despite the gap between them being just eight years. The reason was because his wife was big on sport and "she's the boss".
This was a day after a Native Affairs poll put him on near level-pegging with Labour's Kelvin Davis for the Te Tai Tokerau byelection next Saturday.
Since then further pressure has gone on. Prime Minister John Key's statement that he believed Davis would win was seen as a tacit endorsement of Davis, adding to what was already a heated byelection - one in which the 33,000 voters of Te Tai Tokerau will make a local decision with national ramifications. It will either spell the end or a new beginning to Harawira's political career.
He said he was not worried about the poll, but it did anger him - especially rankings that showed Davis had ranked higher on trustworthiness and level on leadership. His mission today appeared to be to prove he deserved better.
He began the day with a visit to Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Rangi Aniwaniwa - the Maori-medium school just outside Kaitaia that he and his wife Hilda Halkyard-Harawira set up in 1993. It was then an aircraft hangar and he was laughed at for his "field of dreams" idea.
It now caters for about 140 pupils from early childhood through to bridging courses for tertiary study. There is a new creche with vegetable gardens alongside, a 25m indoor heated swimming pool and a brand new gymnasium is due to open - "the biggest north of Whangarei" he boasted.
A cluster of children scuttled past, hair slick from the pool. "Hello Hone Harawira," one boy chirruped without breaking step.
"I love it here," Harawira said. "I get a lot of my sense of purpose and drive from here."
There were many trials along the way, mostly financial, but now there is the school, testament to his "vision" and his bloody mindedness.
"So when people talk about my history of breaking the rules, hell yeah. I'm proud of that history of saying we can do things differently."
He knows there are people who don't like him, but it is because of this school, his Te Hiku radio station, leading the 2004 hikoi and the trust boards he is on that he does not believe that poll in which voters rated Davis above his own track record.
"This is the face people don't see. I will always be in the front lines, but when I hear people who know what I've done say 'Hone is just a protester, he just knocks things down', I think 'mate, you know what I've done'."
Kelvin Davis - one of those who believes little good can come to the people of Te Tai Tokerau under Harawira - is in his Whangarei electorate office fretting about posing for his photo.
"It's my puku," he explains. "Uncle Ronald's been taking care of me for the past two and a half weeks."
He tells of a stop off at "Uncle Ronald's" - McDonald's - in Wellsford by way of illustrating how his profile had grown since 2008 when he first stood and Harawira held the seat with more than a 6000 majority.
" Some guy jumped up and shook my hand and wished me luck. That never happened at all in 2008."
Davis is having the time of his life. He's getting used to the limelight. He puts on a Sean Connery voice to demonstrate how his new radio advertisements sound. "I'm Kelvin Davisss, vote for me."
"I'm having the time of my life. In fact, the [general] election could be a bit of an anticlimax, without all this hype."
He's confident and believes he stood up well in the debates. He does not feel daunted by Harawira. In many ways he is a foil to Harawira - serious and even-tempered in contrast to Harawira's more volatile nature.
While Harawira's background was activist, Davis comes from a strait-laced whanau. His father is a JP, his mother an Anglican minister. His siblings include a teacher, a district court judge and a policeman. Education was paramount.
He shrugged when he was told Harawira described him as "as charismatic as a block of wood".
"I try hard to be taken seriously as a politician. There are serious issues affecting us up here and it's going to take complex solutions, not stupid ideas like a Hone Heke tax."
When he did put the boot in, he did it well. He poked fun at Harawira's idea for a "Maori Parliament".
"It sounds like he all wants us to go on a roadtrip. I'm into that. We can all jump into a bus and sing Country Roads or Kumbaya. But that's just a start, at the end he wants a separate Maori Parliament."
He went on to dismiss the argument that Harawira would stay in Parliament regardless of who wins the byelection because of his list placing. That, he says, is an issue of quality over quantity.
"What can he achieve sitting out the back there, holding hands with Chris Carter? What can he achieve sitting there on his own? Labour won't work with him, National won't work with him and he wants to set up a separate Maori Parliament. He can't even register his own party properly and he wants to create a whole new Parliament? Let's crawl before we run."
He is buoyant about his chances. And the signs Labour can smell that sweet and elusive scent of victory wafting through the valleys of Te Tai Tokerau are clear.
This is no half-hearted campaign. Davis' mug smiles out from billboards everywhere, urging people to "vote for jobs for the whanau" alongside others promising a $15 minimum wage. By comparison, Maori Party billboards are scarce and Harawira's fewer still.
Labour's senior Maori MPs are frequent visitors and teams of doorknockers on loan from other electorate organisations stream through the voter-rich West Auckland and Whangarei suburbs every weekend.
It frees up Davis to campaign in person rather than organise. He travels the electorate (6500km in a fortnight, he says), parroting his "creating successful Maori futures" line as often as he can.
The byelection in an electorate where Maori unemployment is high is being fought on such issues.
The general theory seems to be that in Northland, at least, the way to a man's vote is through his puku. Even Harawira has been relatively quiet about issues such as the foreshore and seabed, opting instead to focus on kitchen table issues such as GST, jobs and taxes.
He has a suggestion for what Harawira can do to win: "maybe join a serious political party".
He also has little sympathy for Harawira's complaint about the resources Davis enjoys compared to the fledgling Mana Party - a factor that could be critical for turnout.
"I never called the byelection. Hone is crying poor all the time, well he did it. It was his choice."
While Labour's teams hit the streets, out in Panguru, population 200, Hone Harawira was harnessing kuia power to help ward off Davis' challenge at the marae nestled at the bottom of the hill where Dame Whina Cooper lay in the urupa.
Harawira listened more than he talked. They talked about their children leaving to find work and their marae trying to survive. In return, Harawira talked about work schemes, the Maori Parliament idea and his Mana party.
He did not talk about Davis much or the Labour Party, beyond saying he remained certain he could work with them, despite Phil Goff's decision.
He does give the Maori Party a serve that can be summed up as too old, too controlling, and, most stingingly, "too attached to the bling-bling" of ministerial posts.
He is more reserved about his more immediate rival, Solomon Tipene, although he does get some giggles by mimicking Tipene's attempt to defend the National Party.
Both Davis and Harawira steered clear of strong criticism of Tipene, whether because they don't consider him a threat or because it would look like lack of respect for a kaumatua.
In Whangarei, Tipene is sitting outside a restaurant in Whangarei's Town Basin, nursing a diet coke.
The great-grandfather was his own second choice as candidate. As the Whangarei branch chairman he and other kaumatua had tried to urge his younger brother Pita Tipene to stand, but Pita wanted to stay working on Ngati Hine's Treaty settlement and fisheries negotiations instead.
"So I commended him and said 'step aside, big brother's coming through'.
"So here I am. Crazy."
Crazy is what others have considered him.
His first press conference was almost painful to watch. He is startlingly honest about it.
"It was scary. I felt like a possum caught in the carlights."
After that he got some advice from the party's leadership.
"Harden up," they told him. Since then he has regained some equilibrium but says he has found it harder than he had expected.
"Of course it's daunting. No matter how seasoned you might be, like Kelvin and Hone, even they are finding it daunting."
Nonetheless, he's "having the time of my life." He even describes door knocking as "fun - for an introvert."
The introvert has found himself flung into the heat of a byelection in which the candidates are expected to do things usually handled by party leaders in the general election. He is also up against formidable opponents.
He was described as too gentlemanly for politics. He'll accept the gentlemanly part of this, but does not believe it's a disqualifer.
"You don't have to be ruthless and a flagwaver to make a difference. What my people are saying is we are sick of divisive politics.
"We need a statesman and a gentleman who will lead us in the next few years. Because Northland has suffered from divisive, destructive politics."
Gentlemanly he may be, but he certainly has a mischievous sense of humour. He says he has wanted a Ford Falcon since his days working in the old Ford factory. Harawira has one - "a big, mustard-coloured thing".
"I'm conservative, as people have pointed out, so I'd have dark grey of course. Or white. I'm not prejudiced. I am part-Scottish, if one talks about quantum of blood, I'm more Pakeha than I am Maori."
One does not, however, talk about quantum of blood.
"No. Not after you-know-who. Don Brash and company."
He is also learning. He's asked to describe his opponents in two words, and uses 26 for Davis.
"Yes, I'm getting good at it."
On Harawira, however, he only needs two words: "good scrapper".
Then he can't resist adding, "I've got more time for Kelvin, as you can see, than I do for Hone."
After 40 years in the public service, he returned to Whangarei five years ago to be closer to his Motatau homeland and invest more time in his own iwi, Ngati Hine. He is now the Whangarei District Council's Maori liaison officer.
He said his skill was "building bridges". He thinks Harawira might have a different approach to bridges.
"I was a field engineer in the Territorials and we built bridges, but we also demolished bridges. You can draw your own conclusions from that."
On byelection day, Tipene says he will cast his vote "for Solomon Tipene. I quite like him."
"And then we will celebrate. Whatever way it goes."
After the party, he jokes, he will "go home and cry".
"No, I'll go back to work. But I intend to win. It will mean some hard work."
He said the Maori Party stood in the seat so Harawira wouldn't get a "straight run".
"I hope I give him nightmares at night."
As the Panguru meeting wound up, Harawira's supporters were reminded if they wanted Harawira to help fix their problems, he needed to be voted in. Hilda added one slightly startling note of caution: "If he doesn't get in, we are not going to go there again."
Harawira raised his eyebrow in surprise. When asked about Hilda's comment later, his eyebrow raised again, he laughed and there was a long silence.
"That was news to me as well. I need to have a chat to my darling wife. That's an instruction I need to have clarified," he finally said.
There is another shorter silence and then a nervous mutter: "She's the boss."
