If we're starting to talk about Waitangi Day, the end of the year has arrived. So what will John Key and Phil Goff be reflecting on as they tuck into their Christmas pudding?
When the English flag – the cross of St George - flies next to the Union Jack on Windsor Castle, does that shake the foundations of Westminster democracy? Likewise the Scottish flag of St Andrew ‘s cross flying over the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, or the Welsh dragon flying on official buildings in Wales?
Winston Peters’ claims of constitutional outrage over the decision to fly the tino rangatiratanga flag next to the New Zealand flag on Waitangi Day are as accurate as usual. He just forgot to tell us what part of our unwritten and organic constitution is being usurped. Other countries have the maturity to recognise the duality of emblems, the bi-cultural nature of their communities, without the sky falling in.
There is some truth in Shane Jone’s grizzling that the tino rangatiratanga flag has been adopted by the Maori Party. Nonetheless, it has been the de facto Maori flag for many years, well prior to the emergence of the Maori Party. The party (cleverly) chose that symbol precisely because of its resonance and dominance as a symbol of Maori aspiration.
But while some grizzle, one can only applaud John Key for taking the decision he has. Most Labour supporters will feel a strong sense of pride from seeing the two flags flying together. If there’s any sadness, it will be that the decision – emblematic that it is - was made by a National government and not their own. It is a progressive decision – not a conservative one. After a couple of years, people will wonder what all the fuss was about.
The move highlights Labour’s continued problem with the Maori Party-National nexus. Labour needs to drive a wedge between National and the Maori Party, rather than try to destroy the Maori Party. Hone Harawira might be Labour’s biggest target at the moment, but he is also an opportunity. Hot-blooded as he is, he represents the Maori Party wing that is enduring extreme discomfort at the coalition arrangements with National.
Meanwhile, National heads to Christmas in high spirits. John Key, undoubtedly, will enjoy his Fleetwood Mac downloads at his Omaha bach (no Billy Bragg or Clash will play there), basking in a year of record poll ratings. English has put the mini-scandals behind him and, along with Joyce, is the main grunt in the government’s front row. Power and Brownlee, the other two making up the tight five, have also enjoyed good years.
There is a prospect that next year will be much more difficult for National. As English makes abundantly clear (he’s relentlessly on message), there is no money to spend. For a myriad of government programmes, funding pressures - currently building - will hit bursting point. Already the pips are being squeezed in ACC and adult community education. By the last quarter of next year, assuming a tight budget, interest and lobby groups will be screaming very loudly in many, many more areas.
It is that prospect which Labour needs to be focusing on now. Spokespersons need to be building those relationships with the key figures in their portfolios, looking for the areas which will be most sensitive, and preparing the groundwork for the unrest which is likely to occur.
Phil Goff, meanwhile, is finding out just how wretched leading from opposition can be. Commentators (like John Armstrong) have been trenchant, unfairly so, in their recent criticism of Labour’s performance in opposition. Nothing he does seems to have any impact. Whether he makes a decent speech, or skilfully challenges the government in the house, not long after a poll comes out with National on fifty-something and Labour in the 30s.
There is no challenge to Goff from within the caucus or party. Party members can pick the public sentiment as much as anyone. They might not like it, but they know that whatever Phil does or says, the public is not particularly interested, just now. But they also know he’s a politician of real substance, like his predecessor. Leadership spills, moreover, tend to prolong – not curtail – periods of opposition purgatory.
The main issue for Labour is to focus on being a very good opposition party, prepared to take full advantage when the mood does start to change. When that will be is anyone’s guess - dispiriting as that prospect is, it’s difficult to change the zeitgeist. But they can’t shut up shop and leave the government to it. They need to just plough on. Next year, after another ugly budget, they might just have ample material to talk about.
Comments (9)
David,
You wrote the post I was going to, complete with reference to Scotland's use of the Cross of St Andrew alongside the Union Jack! Also, anyone interested in how the "Tino Rangtiratanga" flag came into being/came to be chosen as the "Maori flag" might like to check this out.
David and Andrew - while I fully support the decision to fly the tino rangatiratanga flag, and while Winston Peters was clearly talking nonsense when he said that "no First World nation flies two flags", the parallel with flag-flying in the UK is not a good one. The English, Scottish and Welsh flags represent bounded political territories. While some racists may argue otherwise, those flags are meant to represent all the people within those nations, regardless of ethnicity - so the Scottish flag represents Scots of Afro-Caribbean origin just as much as white Scots. In Northern Ireland, on the other hand, flags are closely aligned with ethnic/national identity - but the situation there is so polarised that it also bears little resemblance to the situation in Aotearoa New Zealand. The recognition given to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in Australia (which Winston Peters flatly denied) is a much better example for us to consider. There, flags representing indigenous peoples have been officially recognised alongside the Australian national flag - and the sky has not fallen in. There is, however, a much more difficult question to be asked about the value of such symbolic recognition, and whether it is simply an attempt to appropriate or assimilate indigenous identities, or to avoid more difficult constitutional issues.
Maybe it is nonsense to say no First World nation flies two flags,although Icannot readily name one, but it seems bloody silly and unnecessary to impose a contentious and radical banner on a reluctant populace.
Back in 1987 my mate built a clinker dory, we lived out West on the Manuka Harbour at Little Huia bay. We had a celebration for the launch involving the local community. My mate, an ex RNZ Navy Lieutenant said a few words and raised te tino rangatiratanga flag up the mast. Half of the crowd departed, never to return. The dory sails on regardless.
Te tino rangitiratanga is guaranteed under section two of The Treaty of Waitangi. The Maori party is currently vested with promoting Maori sovereignty and this is the flag they have chosen for the job. The pairing of the flags on the harbour bridge is merely sybolic of this relationship, not divisive, unless one party fails in their actual obligations under the Treaty.
We should be proud and strong together.
This is fatuous nonsense, David. Spin. As others have already pointed out, the flags of Scotland and England represent geographically discrete and historically grounded political entities. The "Union" Jack symbolically incorprates the flags of both to signify a "United" Kingdom.
The Tino Rangatiratanga flag, in spite of the best efforts of revisionists to paint it as a unifying symbol, is the banner of the Maori sovereignty movement and the inherent challenge it poses to the unitary New Zealand state.
The Treaty of Waitangi (a similarly "revised" historical artefact) was concluded between scores of autonomous Maori chiefs and the British Government. As a "living document" it did not long survive the coming of settler self-government which, as at least one of our constitutional scholars, Jock Brookfield, has noted, carried out a "revolutionary siezure of power" which reduced the Treaty to a "simple nullity".
Put bluntly, the Tino Rangatiratanga flag represents a political movement dedicated to reconstituting in the Twenty-first Century something of the political, cultural and economic autonomy enjoyed by the chiefs of the Maori tribes in the Nineteenth. The solution they pose is a "plurinational" - as opposed to unitary - constitutional entity. In other words, a form of secession.
Rather than giving us the flag of St George, you would have done better to offer us the image of Abraham Lincoln deciding to fly the flags of the Union and the Confederacy side-by-side on July 4th 1862.
I think you'd have to agree, that such a decision would have riled more than a few of his countrymen - just as Key's decision has riled more than a few New Zealanders.
in New Zealand the flag to pair with the Tino Rangatiratanga flag is the Union Jack. Not the New Zealand Ensign. Two parties made a treaty, British and Maori. The New Zealand Ensign is the symbol of the result of that Treaty. It has a British component ( the Union Jack ) and a local component. ( The stars ). It's quite appropriate to fly the Jack and the Ensign to commemorate that agreement. (Maori agreed to hand over sovereignty.) But to fly the Tino flag next to the Ensign is an insult to the Treaty and symbolises a wish to break the agreement.
Chris: I hadn't realised you were so conservative. Article two promises Tino Rangitiratanga, which many translate as chieftainship or soverignty. Many too would argue that this has not been honoured properly. To not allow two ensigns to fly is perpetuating disunity.
If this flag poses a challenge to the "basis of a unitary New Zealand state"; kia ora to that. It seems that in your world unitary means monocultural and hegemonic.
Chris,
"Rather than giving us the flag of St George, you would have done better to offer us the image of Abraham Lincoln deciding to fly the flags of the Union and the Confederacy side-by-side on July 4th 1862."
Absolutely. Because obviously we're on the very eve of civil war. Over the issue of the right of some parts of NZ to treat people of other colours as chattels. I mean, it is SO obvious that this is a MUCH more apposite comparison than is another set of modern liberal-democracies where the population are able to hold multiple allegiances and signal these through differing symbols. David - yer an idiot.
Oh - and as for "The Tino Rangatiratanga flag, in spite of the best efforts of revisionists to paint it as a unifying symbol, is the banner of the Maori sovereignty movement and the inherent challenge it poses to the unitary New Zealand state" ... check out the SNP's use of the Cross of St Andrews on their homepage. But feel free to head over there and tell the Scots they can't fly it because they are being party political. In fact, please do so.
Chris, you're defining 'political entity' very narrowly. Are the Maori people not a political entity with their own geographical and historical grounding in this country? And why does one have to be geographical anyway? Is the people's flag not deepest red worldwide?
What you dismiss as revisionism is surely the evolution of the flag's meaning; indeed, you're dismissing the meaning given to it by its creators, which seems a bit disrespectful.
I'm sure I look at the NZ flag and apply to it a very different meaning from my grandfather when he was in the merchant marines. Similarly with the Treaty, coming generations will define and interpret it differently from our own. So, what's new? That's the heart of politics and identity. As William says, tino rangtiratanga is guaranteed in the Treaty; figuring out what that means is the birthright and burden of every New Zealander.
But that question of meaning goes to the heart of my concern about flying the flag this coming Waitangi Day. Simply, a flag is meant to stand for something, to represent shared values.
So, David, for all the pride that many Labour supporters may feel when they see the dual flags (or duelling flags?), do we as New Zealanders attach a shared meaning to the tino rangatiratanga version? Does it really stand for something, or is it just a warm fuzzy? Even if we accept that it's no longer a separatist banner, what values does it express?
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