The hīkoi was Māori Party’s crowning glory - Barry Soper

THREE KEY FACTS

• Tens of thousands of people rallied in Wellington on Tuesday.
• A haka performed by Māori MPs in Parliament gained global headlines last week.
• David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill passed its first reading in Parliament on Thursday.

Barry Soper is Newstalk ZB’s senior political correspondent.

OPINION:

The Māori Party will be well pleased with the hīkoi this week.

There was the long-planned haka in Parliament’s debating chamber last week, for which they’ll be slapped on their wrists with a wet bus ticket, but the hīkoi was their crowning glory.

This was all about politics, grievances aside, and they’ve got what they craved, publicity. The march could easily have turned ugly with a good representation of bikies, legally showing their patches for the last time before they’re made illegal on Thursday.

But the protesters were well behaved, respectfully moving aside to let yours truly into the Beehive.

Parliament’s Speaker Gerry Brownlee wisely prevented the public from watching proceedings from the galleries overlooking the debating chamber, preventing a repeat of the raucous outburst last week. It allowed the business to be conducted unhindered.

The Greens were meaningless, trying to embarrass the Prime Minister for not addressing the crowd outside. As his deputy Winston Peters rightly said, he wasn’t invited.

The man in charge of the bill that saw people marching around the country, David Seymour, might not get his referendum on the Treaty, but he’s now got six months of public hearings on it before the justice select committee.

That will keep the Act Party in the limelight as the articulate Seymour pontificates about equality for all, while at the same time picking up wavering centre-right voters.

So ironically, the hīkoi and the months that follow it will benefit the two diehard political enemies.

The Greens will also benefit simply for being green and supporting any anti-establishment cause, while New Zealand First will be unaffected because it’s simply Winston Peters.

National and Labour will be licking their wounds. But they’ll heal in time for the next election, which is the feeling of those in the parties even though they acknowledge they’ve taken a hit.

It’ll be tougher for Labour though with its leadership joining in with the protesters and, as a result, publicly aligning itself with the Māori Party.

And if you’re wondering just how silly they can be, get a load of their latest antic in Parliament – they’ve laid a complaint against the beleaguered Speaker Brownlee, claiming he overused his powers, going further they said, than for any other protest.

Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngawera-Packer must have been asleep in Parliament listening to Barry Manilow when Speaker Trevor Mallard blasted his dulcet tones to the deafened Covid protesters.

She also complained about the party not being able to give the whānau water. Well, the Speaker could have done a Mallard and turned the sprinkler system on.

And she’s also complaining about Brownlee denying the marchers access to Parliament’s Wi-Fi. She mustn’t know about the ability of smartphones to use their own data.

Now that’s the coalition partner Labour will likely need. It doesn’t bear thinking about!

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