Turia told off - but holds on to her job

By EUGENE BINGHAM political reporter

A bristling Helen Clark warned radical minister Tariana Turia to drop the "psycho-babble" yesterday but stopped short of dumping her over the Maori holocaust speech.

The Prime Minister returned from a mountain holiday and immediately let Mrs Turia know she had been offended by the now infamous speech in Hamilton last week.

But she ended their telephone conversation in a conciliatory tone, resisting calls for Mrs Turia's sacking and instead setting her back on the path of the Government's Closing the Gaps programme.

"She should stay to ground and concentrate on some practical work."

Helen Clark also made a call to number four-ranked minister Steve Maharey, assigning him to keep a close watch on the fiery Associate Minister of Maori Affairs.

Mrs Turia caused outrage last week when she said Maori tribes had suffered a "holocaust" under colonisation and said Maori violence was a result of "post-colonial traumatic stress disorder."

Her speech to a psychologists' conference was made while the Prime Minister was away on a 10-day break.

Upon her return yesterday, Helen Clark said she was offended by the holocaust reference.

"I have made it clear that it is completely unacceptable analogy to me. "Okay, there are parts of New Zealand history that none of us can be proud of, but I'm afraid it's hard to find an equivalent to six million [Jewish] people being trucked and railed to gas chambers and exterminated."

Asked how much damage the speech had done to the Government, Helen Clark revealed she had considered returning home early to deal with the fallout.

"Obviously I thought about this as I was on half a cellphone battery with a crackly line out of a mountain hut. I thought, 'Should I rush back?'

"Then I thought, 'Well, it's a bit out of perspective to rush back for one ill-judged speech by a junior minister."'

While the speech should not have been given, it did not warrant a sacking, said Helen Clark.

"Mrs Turia, focused on a problem, can do a power of good and my job is to endeavour to focus her on the problem.

"My job is to keep her focused on the problem - not the psycho-babble."

Helen Clark also revealed that the speech replaced an original one written by the Ministry of Maori Development, Te Puni Kokiri.

Mrs Turia told Helen Clark she had decided against delivering the ministry speech but had asked a staff member to show the new speech to the Prime Minister's office.

"At that point, our systems would have got it and we would have said, 'Hang on a minute, you can't put it like that.' Unfortunately, the staff member let her down and let us all down."

A spokeswoman for Mrs Turia said she was unavailable for comment yesterday.

She did confirm that the speech replaced an original one provided by Te Puni Kokiri, but would not comment on why it was not shown to Helen Clark's staff.

When asked who had written the speech, the spokeswoman said it was not written by one particular person.

"It came out of the office as a whole."