Hand in glove for some, barge pole for others

Later, when Miss Clark wanted her say she was interrupted by Mrs Harawira who insisted it would be a breach of protocol, especially before Maori women had the same right.

Miss Clark was reduced to tears, probably as much out of frustration and anger as disappointment, as she was caught between two crucial Labour touchstones: equal rights for women and respect for Maori protocol.

She reacted by staying away and then later restricting her attendance to only the upper marae. It was a period when the foreshore and seabed fracas and Don Brash’s speech highlighting so-called Maori ‘‘privilege’’ drove a wedge between Labour and a chunk of its Maori support and saw the rise of the Maori Party.

Prime Minister John Key has made the call to go to Te Tii and to keep going whatever.

Why, when National Party leaders have been variously jostled, shouted down and – in the case of Dr Brash – pelted with mud?

Why, when the sight of Mr Key hand in glove with Mrs Harawira – the mother of Hone and the matriarch of a dynasty of protest – hardly appeals to the swinging middle-of-the road voter?

It is partially defiance. Not to go would be a concession and a sign of weakness – or worse, an apparent unwillingness to confront the difficulties that need to be aired on Waitangi Day.

As Mr Key himself said inside the meeting house ‘‘history will judge me well for coming here year after year’’.

This year it was doubly important for him to front, with water rights issues so recently being canvassed in the Supreme Court – a fight that seems to have expanded the influence of the Maori Council with two controversial figures from the Left and the Right joining: John Tamihere and Donna Awatere Huata.

Even if the court upholds the earlier judgment and finds for the Crown, allowing the partial sale of Mighty River Power to go ahead, the question of Maori water rights will not be dammed.

Mr Key is nervously eyeing the next step in the Paki case, where Chief Justice Sian Elias’ liberal view is seen as holding more sway than in the asset sales case.

In that case, determined in June, the Supreme Court found Maori rights had not been extinguished in the nonnavigable stretch of the Waikato River adjacent to land at Pouakani. (Ownership of rivers was set by section 14 of the Coal Mines Amendment Act, which states that the beds of navigable rivers shall remain, and be deemed to have always been, vested in the Crown. The case meant navigability would be determined on each section of a river, not on the river overall.)

While the Supreme Court found in Pouakani’s favour, the second leg of the appeal, expected later this year, will examine whether the Crown breached its fiduciary duty and, if so, what remedies should apply. The case has clearly strengthened Maori claims to water, riverbeds and management and allocation rights, if they can have parts of rivers declared non-navigable.

Mrs Harawira and the stoushes at Waitangi – and how Mr Key responds – might be riveting theatre.

But there is more (shallow) water to be explored before we hear the chimes of midnight on the far more substantial issue of Maori water rights.