Hurricanes Poua haka should be welcomed - Paul Lewis

Leilani Perese of the Hurricanes Poua leads her team's haka, much to the outrage of Winston Peters (inset). Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

There used to be a saying prevalent in rugby circles: keep politics out of sport. The petty fuss over the Hurricanes Poua and their haka criticising the Government seems to have sparked something of a reversal: keep sport out of politics.

Winston Peters’ snippy response to the Poua had the opposite effect to that intended - now all eyes are on the Super Rugby Aupiki team’s next games to see what fresh “insult” is directed towards the Beehive. He’s helped to lift interest in the women’s game.

I gave a small cheer when the Poua did their thing. Rugby involves many Māori and Pasifika people; they are a big part of the bedrock of the New Zealand game. So it follows that the sport - and the people in it - should be commenting more than they do on Government policies that affect them.

The haka is, and has always been, a communications vehicle - not just limited to the versions the All Blacks use. Of course, it took the women to do it. You might have hoped the blokes would have led the way, but they are obviously too busy advancing their careers. Men are the hunter-gatherers, women are the nurturers, right? (This is sarcasm, for those who may not have recognised it).

I don’t even mind that the second iteration of the haka seemed to rely on some kind of cultural obfuscation when it came to wordings and optional interpretations. Politicians, after all, have been employing that skill for centuries.

The women didn’t perform a haka when they faced the Blues on Saturday and we can respect their choice not to do it.

Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris said it all when he told Newshub that the women were simply taking a stand against the National-led Government’s policies and actions which “profoundly negatively affect Māori communities”. He added that New Zealand Rugby and successive governments had made an “international brand out of the haka, yet when it is used in its absolute cultural integrity - how it is supposed to be used - they are upset”.

So when did our politicians grow such thin skin? This coalition Government - Baldy, Wrinkles and Twerker - has set out its stall, attracting the “silent majority” with policies interpreted by Māoridom as an attack. So far, so divisive. A backlash had to be expected.

Yet Peters was so moved by the criticism inherent in the haka that he felt compelled to say the “naive players” were “trying to insult the Government but were just slapping the Hurricanes brand and the CEO in the face”.

Hurricanes chief executive Avan Lee later revealed that the team had run the haka past club management this time, amending it in a way that was “respectful and true to the team” - a masterfully political way of putting it. But Peters still found it insulting. I mean, really? A politician so fond of casting himself as the man who tells it like it is?

New Zealand politicians have had a dream run when it comes to that stuff. Here’s what the late, great, journalist and critic A.A. Gill said about Boris Johnson, the former UK Prime Minister (before he secured that position): “Boris Johnson’s naturally peroxide blond hair seems to be on back-to-front. His suit is a vast, filthy shapeless thing that has room in its seat for two floating voters... Off his crotch hangs a blob of goop that looks like an amalgam of egg white and cobweb.”

So you may feel Peters gets off pretty lightly in this country. Surely the coalition should be getting on with the important stuff, like, oh I don’t know, uniting the country and doing something effective about the appalling shortcomings in essential infrastructure like public transport, water, sewage, power, railways, an ailing health system, the Cook Strait ferries and the defence force, with its dodgy planes and outmoded ships.

This atrophy has been caused by the combined efforts of successive Governments/coalitions of whatever hue (red, blue, green or other) who have been far too busy monitoring polls and striving to retain power at the next election rather than actually fixing those problems.

Climate change? Nope, more pressing problems, apparently... tax cuts. Now we get to add race relations to the Government’s To Do list - and this a rookie combination which has so far exhibited about the same skill level as Edward Scissorhands attempting to make balloon animals.

So a few jibes from a bunch of female rugby players shouldn’t be prompting the deputy co-leader of the nation into passionately pushing the keys on his phone in his social media accounts. Rugby and those who play it should do more to let governments know what a decent slice of their community thinks and feels - and I for one hope the Poua keep on sticking a metaphorical lit match in Winston’s ear.