Paul Holmes: Disturbing double standard

The thing about the whole Hone Harawira business is the double standard. If a European Member of Parliament had railed against Maori motherf*****s raping the country through the centuries, the reaction would have been volcanic, not only in the Maori community but across the Pakeha community as well. And any Pakeha member of any other political party would have been out on his ear within hours.

What was fascinating this week was the silence in the Maori community and the continued support Harawira seemed to maintain.

The Maori Party seemed unable to hear the country's demand for quick, determined action this week. The implication was that there is one standard for 120 MPs and another standard for Harawira. The party's dawdling made it seem incompetent.

The party let things fester. It lumbered hesitantly and groggily through the whole seismic few days, feeling its way, half blind, projecting a terrible indecision. Tariana Turia, who would have been immediate in her reaction to any Pakeha who uttered the infamous words in Harawira's emails, was singularly coy in her comments.

Pita Sharples, her co-leader, remained invisible for days. He was so silent that I assumed he must be overseas. He was not, of course. He simply laid low and said nothing. Why? Where was his leadership? When he reappeared on Wednesday to announce some policy or other, all the reporters wanted to talk to him about was Harawira. And that's telling. I haven't a clue what the policy was because, like anyone else this week, all I am noticing in relation to the Maori Party is Hone Harawira.

But by the end of the week it was clear the tide had turned in the upper echelons of the party against Harawira. It looks like he has a fortnight either to go himself or get pushed, expelled from the caucus. Turia said he acted like an independent MP already and more or less admitted he was uncontrollable. As Sharples said, the only way the Maori Party can do things for the Maori people is if they have credibility. No credible party can keep within itself an MP who describes white people as motherf*****s and rapists. Which is why the remarks by Sharples and Turia on Friday morning remained hopelessly inadequate. It was hopeless hand-wringing.

There is still no statement by the co-leadership of the Maori Party saying that what Harawira said was wrong, that the white people are not motherf*****s or rapists. None of the leadership has yet refuted Harawira's basic premise. Incredible.

Could it be, in fact, that they cannot refute what he says because they share his beliefs? That is what we all began to wonder as the party leadership drifted through the week without emphatic denunciation of what Harawira expressed. What was sad about the week is that we did not really find out.

As for Harawira himself, every step he took upon his return from Europe, every utterance he made, was clumsy and ignorant and disastrous. Right from the start, when he justified his jaunt down to Paris, everything he said has jarred. His apology merely worsened his situation. It was no apology. It was an apology for swearing, for the language used. Phil Goff, who gained traction this week for his first time as leader, was quick to see the inadequacy of the apology. Where was the apology for taking the missus sightseeing while overseas on the taxpayer's teat? Where was the apology for what the offending remarks actually said?

What made the day of his "apology" even more absurd was his assertion that Goff and his Labour mates ought to be lined up and shot for the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Given the violence of this country, is that something a sitting MP should say publicly? And given the trouble he was in, what does that remark tell us about his judgment?

By the way, is there not a great irony Harawira's desperate dash to Paris? The man who thinks whites are motherf*****g country rapists, when given the opportunity by the taxpayers, the majority of whom are white, cannot wait to see Paris, one of the most beautiful, iconic, historic centres of white people's art, civilisation, worship, thinking and and learning. There was also a certain revolution there a couple of hundred years ago that set Europe on the path towards universal political representation.

As I mentioned on Newstalk ZB this week, one of my oldest mates came out to the farm last Sunday after I got back from Auckland, furious about the Harawira emails. The reason? He had given his party vote to the Maori Party. I hadn't known this. He had done so, he said, because he respected people such as Sharples and Turia and felt it was good for the health and the mood of the country to have them in Parliament. But Hone's remarks were beyond the pale for him.

Sometime earlier in the week, the ever amiable Dover Samuels, unable to resist, piped up. Hone cannot apologise, he said, because he expressed what he believes, therefore any apology from Harawira for saying that would be insincere.

It was a cute intervention. I do not agree with it, though. In this case, a full apology was required because an entire group of people had been maligned, hurt and offended by an elected MP. The point of an apology is to compensate for hurt, never mind what you believe or do not believe. You apologise because what you have done has hurt. That this escaped Harawira's psychology spoke volumes about the man.

IT WAS never going to be whether but, rather, when Winston Peters would make his move. This week, with the damaged Maori Party in disarray he pounced. In Turia's own city, Wanganui, he declared the Maori Party to be racist. He said Harawira should be in a gang somewhere, not in a parliament, and expressed consternation that the party had not sacked Harawira immediately. Plus, there are too many Chinese coming into the country and our nation is disintegrating and New Zealand First must be heard again in Parliament, but never mind all of that for the time being.

Should Harawira have been sacked? It is confoundedly difficult, this one. If the others in the Maori Party caucus think as he does, then how could they sack him? But we do not know if this is so. He is a big man, Harawira, big physically, big in spirit. He is also proud and arrogant, two characteristics that define his face. Whenever I meet him, I feel I have to spend the first few minutes re-establishing my credentials as a human being, and that I do not have six legs, two feelers and live in the dust. He is, I suppose, a rough diamond. As I said last week, he is not without charm.

Both Turia and Sharples have learned this week that any major clanger from Harawira distracts terribly. They have been humiliated by him. Their failure to act decisively reflected badly upon their leadership. Harawira should have been rebuked, silenced and disciplined by both of the party leaders before last weekend was over. This might have damaged Harawira, but it would not have damaged the party.

But ... white motherf*****s? Feel the violence, the contempt, even hatred they convey.

Did we ever have a Member of Parliament utter anything like that?

If he stays, Harawira could damage the sinews of the coalition. As a cannon, he is very loose. He simply doesn't care about the conventions of caution. That is the problem with him. John Key will have to watch very carefully. With Harawira on one side, and Peters re-appearing like the elder statesman on the other, the game could intensify very quickly.