Shane Jones: the political obituary

I know Shane Jones. I like Shane Jones. I don’t want to seem like a sycophant, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I admired him. I disagreed with much of what he said, sure, but I recognised a commanding Maori leader.

Here was a man – and I’m deliberately using gendered language, but more on that later – who understood the Maori experience and the Maori condition: our idiosyncrasies, language, literature, history, philosophies, spiritualism and our politics.

And that’s what set Jones apart. In that respect, he was above the Maori leaders of his generation. He was the successor to Ngata’s legacy. It’s probably because he was a student of James Carroll. Both men appreciated that Maori society is always adapting tradition to modernity. Carroll took that to mean integration into and imitation of British political institutions. Jones took that to mean integration into and imitation of Anglo-American capitalism.

It’s said that Maori walk backwards into the future. History is closer. Jones knew this better than many. I think it’s what influenced his political thinking and practice. It’s the reason he favoured integration on Maori terms – he was drawing on the wisdom of experience, as he saw it – and the reason he valued oratory. He traced his political descent down the same line as Carroll, Ngata, Couch and Peters. Shane was a model of these Maori men. He drew on their strengths, but he also inherited their weaknesses.

Shane inherited the prejudices of the likes of Carroll, Ngata, Couch and Peters. These were conservative men who didn’t care as much for other marginalised groups. Take Apirana Ngata. He was an Anglo-patrician who believed in a racial hierarchy. Although he committed his entire being to Maori, he was not open-minded on today’s standards. I’m not saying Jones’ believes in racial hierarchy, but that he inherited blindspots from his predecessors.

It’s those blindspots that make Shane a social democrat, but not a liberal. That was a cause of tension, stress and confusion on the left. Labour was always his default home, but I don’t think it was ever his proper home. Shane was socialised into politics off the back of, for lack of a better term, the old left. His introduction to Parliament and the Beehive was while working for Geoffrey Palmer in the fourth Labour government. He would've been a better fit - ideologically - in the Maori Party. He might've had a more successful career in National.

This meant he was neither perfect for Maori nor perfect for the left. (But perfection is a false chalice, yet that didn’t stop many from demanding it). The attacks against women were uncalled for and wrong. The struggle for gender equality shouldn't and can't be divorced from the struggle for ethnic equality. Equality works best when it's equality for the whole and not the parts.

I think many of Shane’s Maori supporters were always willing to recognise that. Yet his opponents rarely acknowledged his significance for Maori and in Maori political history. His place in Maori politics and Maori history was ignored. That was a telling signal to Maori - a people who revere the past and always try to fit their thinking in it. Shane worked because he understood this. He knew what made Maori tick, though it was always undermined by the faults of his political line.

But what was worse – and very neo-colonialist – was being told to wait for someone better. That moment had too much in common with when the radical left realised tino rangatiratanga meant ownership and then Maori suddenly became the new bourgeois. I’ve said it before: Maori politics doesn’t sit apart from the political spectrum, but below it. At least the political right doesn't pretend to be a false friend.

Maori political history isn't rich with choice. Telling us to wait for a more "progressive" candidate is deeply offensive. Maori have waited too long for too little. Shane was an opportunity and one many - including myself - were willing to back. He wasn’t perfect, but he was as close as we’ve come in more than a decade to the centre of power. Winston was the last Maori politician to come close to real power. It’s been a century since Maori actually touched it (Carroll as acting prime minister). Forgive us for working with what we have.

Shane was always good to me. I don’t base my politics on how well politicians treat me, but I believe he was a good man with honest intentions. That’s more than I can say for a lot of politicians I’ve met. I wish Shane all the best. But I’m mourning what he represented and what appears to be, for now, a loss of meaning in Maori politics. Who carries the tohu of the likes of Carroll now? Is that political line broken? After all, Parekura has gone. Tariana is leaving. But who is coming through?