6/4/05
The beginning -
Candour from a politician about his own party is all too rare in public. It is common in private; everyone from the Prime Minister down is capable of criticising colleagues as candidly as Labour MP John Tamihere has done, if not in quite the same terms. But mostly they do it when they are confident the conversation will not be recorded. Mr Tamihere has been careless in the extreme if, as his interviewer insists, a tape recorder was on the table and turning in front of him. But he has been honest, too. That is the reason he is being punished. If his observations did not ring true, his colleagues would be laughing them off.
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And the reaction from other quarters...
John Tamihere should keep his head down and his mouth shut, say Maori voters canvassed following his recent attack on Labour Party colleagues.
However, support for the Tamaki Makaurau MP remains strong in his former hometown of Henderson, with all those spoken to continuing to support the former chief executive of West Auckland’s Waipareira Trust.
Most blame recent pressure - including a Serious Fraud Investigation and a Government-backed inquiry into his dealings while head of the trust - for his outbursts
7/4/05
Slag the Deputy Boss as well...
Whatever, the fury that gripped Dr Cullen left the tiniest suspicion that the Opposition's milking of John Tamihere's confessions about life inside Labour is getting under the Government's skin.
Mr Tamihere's most serious charge is that Dr Cullen regularly hoodwinks minor parties supporting Government legislation.
The first "apology" -
Outspoken Labour MP John Tamihere issued a public expression of "sorrow" last night, immediately welcomed by Prime Minister Helen Clark as "the first step to rebuild a relationship with his colleagues"…. Helen Clark said via a spokesman: "He recognised the seriousness of what was said and recognises the need to rebuild confidence."9/4/05
The Labour leadership pressed Mr Tamihere to publicly apologise to alleviate the battering the Government is receiving in the House and to secure his commitment.
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Comment -
The day that John Tamihere finally stops thinking only of John Tamihere is the day he can start on the road to political redemption.
Even then, the Labour Party will take a mighty amount of convincing that rehabilitating him is worth the effort.
Judging from feedback from members, Tamihere has done his chips for good this time.
If the insults fired at the party's women, trade unions and "queers" were not appalling enough, his refusal to retract them has compounded his sins.
11/4/05
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There was more that he had said...
Labour’s maverick MP John Tamihere is more isolated than ever after it was revealed he attacked even more people in a controversial interview in which he had already managed to offend most of his colleagues.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said Mr Tamihere was now taking "extended leave" due to "considerable stress" and would not be attending a caucus meeting on Tuesday where he had planned to apologise to colleagues for causing offence.
The move follows Mr Tamihere saying he was sick of hearing about the Holocaust, that an ally in caucus was being held back because he ran a "nasty" campaign against Miss Clark, and again abusing women in top jobs.
Miss Clark said the statements were "deeply offensive" and "utterly unacceptable".
Comment again -
If there was any doubt before, there is none now. John Tamihere’s political career is in tatters.
Although Helen Clark has politely ordered him to take extended stress leave, the Prime Minister’s directive means he has been punished for his ill-judged remarks about the Holocaust by being unofficially suspended from the Labour Party caucus.
But this is a stop-gap measure. No one was willing to predict last night what will happen next - and whether this is curtains for Mr Tamihere’s membership of the Labour Party and remaining an MP.
His declaration that he is "sick and tired of hearing how many Jews got gassed" would seem to have taken him past the point of no return as far as his already slim hopes of resurrecting his ministerial career are concerned.
And a parallel article -
A "gutted" John Tamihere was weighing up his future last night after the Prime Minister effectively suspended him indefinitely from the Labour caucus.
Helen Clark ordered Mr Tamihere to take extended leave after remarks he made about the Holocaust - that he was sick of being made to feel guilty over the gassing of Jews - were published.
A close friend of Mr Tamihere told the Herald the MP was gutted and was discussing his political future.
Mr Tamihere will not attend tomorrow’s caucus meeting where he was to have apologised to the numerous colleagues he offended in the controversial Investigate magazine interview.
And the boss's perspective
John Tamihere should consider finding a new job, Prime Minister Helen Clark suggested this morning.
After more inflammatory comments by the MP about Jews, women and colleagues were revealed yesterday, Miss Clark placed Mr Tamihere on extended leave due to his suffering "considerable stress".
Mr Tamihere was due to apologise for comments about colleagues made to Investigate magazine tomorrow at caucus but will now not be given the opportunity.
He has made no formal resignation offer but should think about his future Miss Clark said.
"I think in the period of extended leave that John now has he needs to carefully consider his options," she told National Radio.
Now you would imagine, after all of this, that Dear John would be well and truly toasted, dead and buried, outtahere...
But wait, there's MORE!!!
12/4/05
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Learned analysis...
The Prime Minister’s response to a second helping of John Tamihere’s unedited views might strike the public as more surprising than her reaction to the first course. Last week, when Mr Tamihere unburdened himself of candid opinions on his colleagues, he was asked for an apology. Now that his interviewer has published two more of his remarks, Helen Clark has told him to stay away from the caucus and his career in Labour could be at an end. "He has made statements which are deeply offensive to New Zealanders," she said. "The statements are also offensive and utterly unacceptable to the Labour Party."
She devoted most of her response yesterday to a comment he made on the Jewish Holocaust, although it might be suspected she was more concerned at a vile term he used for women. Certainly his Holocaust comment, when considered in full, hardly seems exceptional. In full, the MP said this: "I am sick and tired of hearing how many Jews got gassed, not because I am not revolted by it - I am - or I am not violated by it - I am - but because I already know that. How many times do I have to be told to make me feel guilty." He said he is revolted, even "violated", by the Holocaust but he does not need to hear the story again. Is that really an "unacceptable" view?
Many New Zealanders echo the sentiment on the subject of Maori land grievances and breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Indeed, it was in an answer to a question about how a society can be focused on injustices of the past that Mr Tamihere made the analogy with the Jewish history…. Either way, it is hard to see him surviving in the party now. It is a pity for his self-respect that he did not leave last week rather than issue an apology of sorts. He is plainly aggrieved at his treatment since surviving a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the Waipareira Trust. He has reason to be aggrieved, but the right response is to resign. He should do so now.
And who threw the life ring?
John Tamihere was apparently thrown a lifeline today after being censured by the Labour Party caucus.
Prime Minister Helen Clark told reporters that caucus has passed a resolution severely censuring Mr Tamihere for grossly offensive comments but everyone in the caucus liked Mr Tamihere.
"John at his best is a wonderful colleague and puts 150 per cent in," Helen Clark said.
"John's known to stumble pretty badly and as he said last week he made the biggest mistake of his life which is damaging to him, and our concern is that it doesn't damage our party."
Mr Tamihere appeared with the Prime Minister after the meeting. He said: "This gives me a chance of rehabilitating myself and I am grateful for that."
13/4/05
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A bit of Dear John's history...
In the mid-1990s West Auckland's Waipareira Trust was a touchstone Maori success story. Bland, well-groomed and overpaid public servants would come and be PRd in that strange assortment of buildings overlooking the carparks of Henderson.
Politicians would come to posture for photographs, and shake the hand of the new face of Maori, the champion of urban Maoridom, the trust's chief executive, John Tamihere. Things looked good as Mr Tamihere sought the Hauraki seat.
His comments lately are no different from his utterances back then. From the outset he was ambivalent about joining the Labour Party. Someone even remarked at the time that he should have joined Act.
In particular, the views he expressed of MPs then were much as they are now. These comments have been excused as "blokism", but Mr Tamihere has been advised on ways of dealing with the media. Obviously he knows what is appropriate behaviour and what is inappropriate. His conduct has nothing to do with articulating or modelling some kind of "red-blooded male" influence on his party… The real problem is Mr Tamihere himself, not the world, the Labour Party or whatever. With a vision of himself as a wronged Kiwi bloke, and a diamond-hard resistance to good political and personal advice, he is tragically locked in needless battles.
These battles are likely to become unbearable as he resists the only right thing to do. Indeed, such resistance represents simply the triumph of ego over common sense. Other careers would provide greater personal happiness and satisfaction. This after all, as he would agree, is just politics.
And more learned analysis...
John Tamihere has been given more than a slap over the wrist with a wet bus ticket. He has been given a severe slap over the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
Just look at the wording of the censure motion passed unanimously at Labour's caucus meeting yesterday…
The Prime Minister did not pretend otherwise in Parliament yesterday when she responded to Opposition accusations she had failed to force Mr Tamihere's resignation by saying she had "exercised her judgment in the interests of the Labour Party".
While the Opposition tries to paint this policy of appeasement as weakness, Labour is portraying her compassion for a colleague under stress as showing strength.
However, his stress levels were apparently not deemed sufficiently high to excuse him a blistering dressing-down from Helen Clark during the caucus meeting.
Something has been made very clear to him. He will be censured only once. His next lapse will see him no longer a Labour candidate.
When, oh WHEN will NZ journalists come up with a better, a more telling euphemism than the tired old "bus ticket"??? There has to be something!! We used to have the "Claytons....", but no one these days would understand it. I have forgotten the exact source too (it has to do with "the drink you have when you are not having a drink"). Or perhaps we could try "rucked by the cat" - not as bad as it sounds given that "rucking" is very commonly practiced in the deepest recesses of the rugby game usually when the ref is looking the other way. There HAS to be something!!!
But, let us move on...
A clever turn in the opening...
John Tamihere only recently joked when defending a wrong turn that he was JT, not the somewhat better known JC.
It must seem a long time ago. Yesterday as he arrived to prostrate himself before Labour's caucus and proclaim his undying commitment to the Faith, his position was akin to that of Judas Iscariot.
Underscoring his isolation was the fact that when he arrived at the Labour caucus meeting, he was flanked only by a few electorate supporters and a dutiful Maori Affairs Minister, Parekura Horomia.
Of his fellow Maori MPs only Mr Horomia, working to keep communication lines open between the Labour leadership and the outcast, had minutes earlier accepted an invite to attend a karakia (prayer) session in Mr Tamihere's office.
And a more detailed report on the Caucus meeting...
Prime Minister Helen Clark stunned her caucus with a withering reprimand of John Tamihere yesterday before moving a motion of censure, effectively a final warning to him.
The disgraced MP sat silently with his head bowed throughout her speech, which one experienced member described as the most severe "bollocking" he had witnessed. Another said he was "gobsmacked" by it.
Helen Clark said Mr Tamihere's behaviour in "trashing" his friends and colleagues to a journalist was intolerable
The censure
"That this caucus severely censure John Tamihere for his grossly offensive comments which run counter to the New Zealand Labour Party's principles, policies of inclusion and respect for all."
From time to time, these events can also be the seed that topples a government.
Will this? There is a lot behind it.
Labour has already lost one senior (but not Cabinet level) Maori MP in this term. The Maori Party, which Tariana Turia started following her expulsion would welcome another of John's standing in the Maori community. Labour can not afford that to happen. Why?
The Maori people could bring as many as 100,000 votes into a "supported party". There are loyalty issues, rights issues, "Treaty" issues (from the Treaty of Waitangi), from hapu to iwi, in addition to all of the issues that impact me as a European NZer. Any political party that takes those Maori issues on board in a positive fashion, and with the support of the Maori traditional structures, can expect to have quite a few votes flow their way.
John could bring both of those factors together in the blink of an eye.
He also commands great respect among the "urban Maori" - a generic term applied to those people who can not trace their "whakapapa", their birthright and ancestry, back into the traditional Maori structures as well as having emigrated to the major centres Auckland in particular during the 50 and 60's. The Waipareira Trust was largely based around the problems that were being experienced by these people.
Has Dear John damaged the party enough that it will lose the next election? How he acts and the role that he is given in the campaign process will determine that. A quiet word behind the hangi can be worth more than ten thousand in the powhiri.
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