Denying reality

Gerry's speech on Saturday didn't explicitly make the mother of all U-turns and call for a reversal of National's Maori-bashing policies - but it did it just the same. Brownlee's statement of the political realities of Maori electoral power made it quite clear that if National wants to be in government, they are going to have to deal with the Maori Party, while his summary of UN Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen's recommendations made clear some of the ground they are going to have to deal on. Brownlee clearly finds the idea distasteful, and seems to back a more formal constitution to prevent such issues being decided by coalition negotiations - but that's still what he's saying. What's interesting is that Don Brash is contradicting him, and denying that there will be any backdown on the policy of abolishing the Maori seats, or any hope of greater constitutional recognition of the Treaty. In doing this, he's denying political reality - and thereby denying national any hope of power. It will be interesting to see what his colleagues in National make of that...