Mavericks in coalition pose challenges to Key

BY COLIN ESPINER, POLITICAL EDITOR

Deliberately Self-Destructive Behaviour, or DSDB in psychology-speak, is a form of usually suicidal activity where death or destruction is the desired outcome.

Judging by the damaging behaviour of MPs Hone Harawira and Rodney Hide over the past week, all of which was self-inflicted, the pair harbour a desire to commit political harakiri.

Both the Maori Party's Te Tai Tokerau MP and the leader of ACT are politically skilled and of above-average intelligence.

Which rules out naivety or stupidity.

Instead, an underlying anger or frustration and a sense of injustice appear the more likely motivation in both cases.

DSDB surely led Harawira to declare "F... it, I'm off to Paris", and to abandon a taxpayer- funded delegation to Brussels, of which he was the leader.

While it's a sentiment many would love to emulate, most wouldn't risk it on company time without expecting a similarly blunt rejoinder from the boss upon their return: "You're sacked."

The contempt with which Harawira holds his employers - the taxpayers of New Zealand - was abundantly clear from the expletive-ridden email he fired off on being questioned over who paid for his wife's travel to the other side of the world.

So was the size of the chip on Harawira's shoulder, which appears to burden the Maori Party MP with a smouldering resentment against "white man's b......." and the "raping of our lands and ripping us off for centuries".

This, presumably, allows Harawira to treat taxpayers - brown ones included - with impunity and disdain.

Of course, the big middle finger Harawira has extended to middle New Zealand is also an "up yours" to the National Party and Prime Minister John Key.

And it is this direct insult that the Maori Party's co-leaders cannot afford to ignore.

Underlying Harawira's attitude seems to be a deep resentment at the fact that his party is in government with National at all. This unease has always been present, but appears clearer with each passing month.

If the Maori Party hierarchy cannot settle him down, it could spell disaster for its supply and confidence agreement with National.

It's ironic, of course, that Harawira's outburst coincided with perhaps the biggest gain the Maori Party has made since its formation - a promise by Key to repeal the hated Foreshore and Seabed Act.

And the Maori Party co- leaders managed this and other wins, such as the Maori Television Service-led bid for the free-to-air Rugby World Cup rights, without any of the posturing and ranting of Harawira.

In his own way, Hide, too, appears to be exhibiting symptoms of frustration at the coalition straightjacket.

His comments last week at an ACT fundraising breakfast in Christchurch were a clear case of being caught telling the truth, at least as Hide sees it.

Far from the agreed on excuse of "lighthearted banter", Hide's remarks were a telling frustration at a lack of action from the senior governing party across a range of fronts.

The reason Hide's comment about Key "not doing anything", yet being popular, struck a nerve because it had a grain of truth in it.

Those in the Right-wing business circles Hide moves in are concerned National is wasting a valuable opportunity for more radical reform, particularly in the economic area.

Hide was merely articulating those concerns.

His comments about Key's half-asleep Cabinet also had a ring of truth.

Beyond the top four or five people, it is a grouping of journeymen (and women) and Hide is doubtless superior in intellect to most.

No-one likes a smart-arse, however, and just because Hide might have been right won't give him any brownie points with National.

Shooting from the lip has likely cost ACT in terms of its influence within senior ministerial circles, at least for a while.

Hide's DSDB appears more curious than Harawira's, given he has always wanted to be in government with National.

It is probably just that he would have preferred the party's previous incarnation under Hide's friend and ally, Don Brash.

He may also feel he is not being given sufficient credit for his work in the local government portfolio.

That doesn't explain Hide's decision to abandon his principles over the MPs' travel perk, and to take his partner on two taxpayer-funded trips - one of which was a straight holiday.

While this makes Hide no different to any other long- serving MP, the difference is that the ACT leader always claimed to represent the ordinary Kiwi battler who didn't have access to such entitlements.

Hide's explanation that he simply got fed up with watching everyone else doing it is understandable, but he must have known that joining the herd at the trough was going to make him look like a hypocrite.

Eventually this must have sunk in, because yesterday Hide called a press conference to apologise, and announced he would pay back all the $22,000 he claimed under the travel perk, admitting he had failed to live up to the principles he set.

It's the second mea culpa by Hide in a week, and ACT will be hoping it's the last for a while.

The bust-ups on both sides of National made for a curious week for the Prime Minister as he celebrates his first anniversary in power.

Key might reflect on the fact that his famous easygoing nature, which helped him sign deals with two radically different parties, could be a curse as well as a blessing.

For if Hide and Harawira feel they can get away with thumbing their noses at the Prime Minister, in much the same way as unruly pupils might with a tolerant school teacher, then things might get really out of hand further down the track.

This is not to say Key is a pushover by any means. The steel beneath Key's "relaxed" attitude was evident in his ruthless sacking of errant minister Richard Worth.

The difference, though, was that Worth was a National MP, and an expendable one at that. Hide and Harawira are from parties that National needs to stay in power.

The trick is finding a line between being overly authoritarian and a milksop. It isn't easy. Helen Clark tried both approaches at times, with MPs as diverse as John Tamihere, David Benson-Pope, and Dover Samuels, but she came to grief over Winston Peters.

By giving Peters the rope with which to hang himself, Clark ensnared her own government too, and the line "that's just Winston" haunted the last days of the former Labour government.

The last thing Key wants is to have to endlessly defend his own junior coalition allies with the words: "That's just Rodney/ Hone."

- © Fairfax NZ News