Tamihere joins the big board

By AUDREY YOUNG

Using his typical fondness for the politically incorrect turn of phrase, new Cabinet minister John Tamihere describes himself as a "working class half-breed from West Auckland".

One of 12 children - one of whom is doing life for murder - Mr Tamihere reckons he was the least likely to succeed of his fourth form class at St Peter's College, Epsom.

Now the former wayward youth has joined what he calls "the biggest board in the country".

"I wish Mum and Dad were alive to see this because they really toughed it out bringing us kids up on a labourer's wage," he told the Herald.

Yesterday, the Labour caucus voted Mr Tamihere into the Cabinet along with former minister outside the Cabinet Ruth Dyson and former junior Labour whip Chris Carter. Mr Tamihere is expected to be made responsible for small business under the commerce portfolio, and become Youth Affairs Minister.

He ably chaired the Maori affairs select committee last term on which sat three former Maori Affairs ministers - Dover Samuels, John Luxton and Doug Kidd - as well as Act leader Richard Prebble and National MP Murray McCully.

Mr Tamihere had a rough introduction to politics. Before he was first elected in 1999, he publicly denied a whispering campaign that he had been involved in a date-rape before he was married.

As a greenhorn MP, he was subjected to a sustained attack by Act for what it regarded as shoddy dealings as chief executive of the Waipareira Trust in West Auckland.

Three drink-drive convictions between 1979 and 1993 provided more fodder for his opponents.

Yesterday, Mr Tamihere said his wife, Awerangi Durie, became tearful when he confirmed his appointment.

He would delay a family celebration because they had "flogged their guts out" during the election campaign.

Mr Tamihere said he had not heard from his brother David, convicted in 1992 of the murders of two Swedish tourists, and had not expected to.

But "the boob [prison] will be running hot with it now. All the fellows up there understand where I stand with regard to getting onward and upward."

Helen Clark said Mr Tamihere (Tamaki Makaurau) and Mr Carter (Te Atatu) were, apart from anything else, both Auckland ministers in the Cabinet.

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