Lessening the imperfections

time next year, on the basis of how it had followed up talks she’d had with iwi about health, education, housing roads and employment.

If there was a mis-step it was in her suggestion that "we" overburden Waitangi each year with unreasonable expectations. As she put it, in contrast to any other day of the year, "we seem to seek perfection in Waitangi Day".

No we don’t. The broader public has no particular problem with protests provided people don’t behave like jerks. Things have turned repellent when the methodology has been shabby misbehaviour like throwing mud or, in one case, a dog’s chew toy shaped like a penis. (Can we stop calling it a dildo?).

The validity of a protest is debased if the means of expression is itself bullying or squalid. To seek to sanctify this, or even minimise its unacceptability, on the grounds that the nation values "free and open discussion" is rubbish.

Granted, the great majority of people at Waitangi have traditionally behaved admirably. But far too frequently and conspicuously, the conduct around the lower Te Tii marae has been poor, a problem compounded by Ngapuhi’s truculent decision to ban unpaying media from the grounds. Unsurprisingly, politicians chose to mark Waitangi Day elsewhere, a decision which the wider public, by and large, have found to be reasonable.

That Ardern now has speaking rights denied Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley is real progress and should be acknowledged as such.

We shouldn’t, and really we don’t, expect the attainment of perfection from Prime Ministers, or Governments, any more than we should from protesters or Waitangi organisers.

But we should expect from them all, and from ourselves, the purposeful and honest pursuit of perfection, and a continuing effort to identify and address failures.

In that respect, the Waitangi Organising Committee can be commended. It was no small call to move away from a tradition limiting women’s status and by doing so and by sidestepping Te Tii, the committee has addressed a source of legitimate public reproach. It becomes easier to focus attention on Waitangi with a sense of interest in what’s said, rather than a sense of unease about what might be chucked around.