KEY POINTS:
The first thing that can be said about Maori Party MP Hone Harawira's description of the Australian Prime Minister as a "racist bastard" is that it wouldn't just be water off a duck's back
It's even less than that. A flea bite on a rhinoceros hide maybe, or a ping-pong ball bouncing off the hull of the super-carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which berthed in Sydney last week, reminding us yet again that, unlike the fastidious wallflower across the Tasman, Australia remains eager to partner the United States in the imperial waltz.
John Winston Howard didn't get where he is today - the second-longest serving prime minister in Australian history, the marathon man of contemporary parliamentary democracy, in his own words "Lazarus with a triple bypass" - by swooning or sulking every time some headline-seeking political fringe dweller said something nasty about him.
Howard has walked away from countless brawls and back-stabbings. He's read several versions of his own political obituary. He's been verbally skewered by stiletto-wielders like Paul Keating and had buckets of abuse tipped over him by yahoos like Mark Latham. But he's still here while his enemies and rivals are either dead or neutralised, or retired from public life.
The second thing that can be said about it is that it's a tautology. When was the last time you saw someone described as a racist paragon or heard a comment along the lines of "Oh, so-and-so's a died-in-the-wool racist but I love him to bits"?
Racism is no longer viewed as mere prejudice, let alone a disreputable belief. It taints the individual irredeemably; it places him or her beyond the pale.
There was something rather quaint about Harawira's Maori Party colleagues essentially endorsing the racist bit but tut-tutting over the bastard. That was emphasised the following day when a Green Party-nominated Youth MP was ejected from the chamber for exhorting the Government to "stop f ... g with our futures". (What does she think governments do?)
Her apology was drowned out by applause and cheering from fellow MPs. It can't be long before the very notion of bad language is deemed to be an anachronism.
And the third thing that can be said is that the issue which sparked the furore is very real and in crying need of a dramatic and creative response.
Michael Long, an Aboriginal and former AFL star, who coincidentally called Howard "a cold-hearted prick" a few years ago, has warned that if the violence and alcohol abuse in Aboriginal communities aren't curbed, his people might cease to exist by as early as 2050.
So what of the accusation itself? Does the cap fit?
Like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Howard's electoral success has been largely based on his ability to identify and address the preoccupations and prejudices of what could be called the aspirational upper working class/lower middle class, traditionally supporters of the party of the left.
The most telling example of this, given that it contributed heavily to his 1996 victory over the formidable Keating and got him into the Prime Minister's Lodge in the first place, was his reaction to the Mabo court decision and the subsequent Native Title Act.
The Liberal Party scare campaign, which Howard enthusiastically fronted and which claimed that not even private homes would be safe from an Aboriginal land grab, tapped into the dark side of the Australian psyche. A similar strategy has been employed over relations with Indonesia, boat people, and the terrorist threat within.
Furthermore, Howard has consistently refused to apologise for white Australia's deplorable treatment of the indigenous people, specifically the stolen generation policy in which Aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed in institutions. There's a faint but unmistakable whiff of that policy in the current proposals for combating child abuse and poverty in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.
US Senator Joe McCarthy was fond of saying about those he suspected of being closet communists that, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck". McCarthyism, however, was simply a political witch-hunt which involved pinning labels on people and forcing them to prove otherwise.
I doubt Howard's a racist but if you persist in pandering to the redneck vote it's inevitable that you'll be judged on the company you keep.
Perhaps as much attention should have been paid to Harawira's statements that if he was an Aboriginal, all he'd want to do is go out and smash someone and that "if they tried this up north, we'd be out with guns".
One would hope that when he looks at societies where violence and the threat of violence is embedded in what passes for the political process, he has the same reaction as most of us and thanks his lucky stars that he's a New Zealander.
