It would help, he thought, if Ngapuhi could get their act together on their Treaty claim. An hour or so later, when a protest had finally moved inside the marae and the, Prime Minister was cleared to enter, John Key told them the tribe stood to gain several hundred million dollars and he offered "some form of payment on account to incentivise people to act in a positive and progressive manner".
That was last year. They still haven't got to first base - an agreed body to negotiate for them. This week at Waitangi, even the Governor-General weighed in, urging them to agree.
Writing in the Herald on Thursday, the chairman of Ngapuhi's tribal authority, Sonny Tau, said: "Imagine if Ngapuhi had settled in the 1990s as Ngai Tahu and Waikato Tainui did. Today Ngapuhi could be the biggest tourist operator, forest owner and corporate farmer in the north ... "
But his article finished: "There are those who would deny our people this dream, preferring to stop settlement at any cost. In the past month I have approached some of these individuals, encouraging them to find a way forward. Sadly those overtures have been rejected."
Sad is the word. Ngapuhi is the country's largest iwi, with 125,000 affiliates. Their forebears were the first to allow Europeans to establish mission stations and settlements, the first to gain muskets and put them to deadly effect on other tribes. When they were done, they adopted the law and government of the world's most powerful empire at that time. The Treaty is theirs above all.
Today Maori comprise 30 per cent of Northland's population, twice the national ratio. The region's median household and personal incomes are the lowest in New Zealand. It has the largest proportion of children and retired people of any in the country and hence the lowest proportion of working age. Of the working age population the proportion in work is well below the national labour force participation rate.
One in five of Northland's youth are neither in school nor a job nor training for a job. That is twice the national rate. It loses willing workers who chase opportunities elsewhere in New Zealand or overseas and attracts very few working age people from other places.
The data all comes from a document called a Tai Tokerau Northland Regional Growth Study taken to Waitangi by Joyce this week. Commissioned by his Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for Primary Industries, it nominates a number of investments that could be worthwhile.
Tourism obviously. Beyond the Bay of Islands it is still pretty raw. The study suggests "a round trip of authentic visitor experiences on both coasts and up to Cape Reinga". More forestry, both for pulp and finished wood products, especially from totara. More Maori-owned land should dairy farms, and fish farming should be encouraged.
Northland's warm clean seawater, it suggests, is ideal for farming kingfish. The region also produces the highest medical grade manuka honey. So it goes on.
Ngapuhi had impressive leaders a generation ago, where are their heirs? Yesteryear's "knights of the north" were in the wrong political party to win the Maori electorate but with more foresight the National Party could have put them in seats it does win. Might it do so now?
It should look for a potential Ngapuhi leader to be its candidate in the Northland byelection next month. National's previous selections for general seats in the north have not been outstanding and now Mike Sabin's inglorious departure demands that the party do better.
Northland should be one of this country's richest regions, not its poorest. It is where most of Auckland wants to go every long weekend. Seven years is long enough to wait for Ngapuhi to resolve their differences. Let this be the year to deal with those willing and see what can happen.
