Editorial: Turia bats on tricky wicket

It looks like Te Tai Hauauru MP Tariana Turia has received a sudden, stark, reminder of being part of a Government.

The Maori Party co-leader's professed outrage over the decision to move the main office for the new Taranaki/Whanganui/Tongariro conservancy to Taupo may well be genuine - but it also reeks of political expediency.

As well as describing the proposal to move the main office as ridiculous, Mrs Turia claims she heard about the decision only at the "eleventh hour".

What Mrs Turia is now experiencing is the common clash between serving an electorate and being part of a Government which has made a decision which will be unpopular with many of the constituents of that same electorate.

Cynics would suggest the only reason Mrs Turia is making such a noise over this is that there's a certain political event coming up on November 26, and it's the right look for her to be doing so.

To outsiders with no knowledge of the mechanics of politics, it's hard to believe that as a functioning member of the Government, Mrs Turia would not have known this decision was imminent.

But if she did only recently find out about the decision to move the office, despite apparently having previously been in discussions about the issue, it's a sad indictment on the lack of communication between various members of the Government.

It's likely Mrs Turia did genuinely make her feelings known to other members of the Government, and did her best to keep the conservancy in Wanganui.

But as part of the National-led Government, the Maori Party and its MPs are in turn judged by the decisions made by that Government, even if they hold relatively little sway in influencing what those decisions will be.

This is the tricky spot Mrs Turia finds herself in, and while she has been open in her criticism of the DoC move, it's hard to imagine too many furrowed brows over her comments down in Wellington.

Instead, there's more likely to be an acknowledgment of an experienced political campaigner being seen to do the right thing.

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