John Key has been landed with one of the most testing issues of his premiership in the Maori Television Service (MTS) bid for the Rugby World Cup free-to-air coverage in 2011.
It makes the H in Wanganui look like small beer.
It presents Labour, too, with a big dilemma in terms of which potential targets to choose in Parliament next week, because picking the wrong one could rebound on it badly.
It effectively ends the bipartisan approach Labour and National have taken to the Rugby World Cup, but that is the least of Mr Key's worries.
The issue has pitted National Party against support party, department against minister, minister against minister, television station against television station, and potentially viewer against Government.
It is divisive on many levels, as the response has shown since last Friday when the revealed that Government Department Te Puni Kokiri (TPK) will spend $3 million as part of the bid package.
It boiled over at a meeting in the Beehive itself on Monday, September 28.
Mr Key was in Florida on holiday after his visit to the United Nations.
TPK chief executive Leith Comer and Maori TV chief executive Jim Mather were summonsed to the Beehive for a meeting with Acting Prime Minister Bill English, Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully, Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman, and Associate Maori Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu.
Exactly how long Mrs te Heuheu knew of the TPK plan before telling her own colleagues is not yet known, but it is thought to have been some time before she sent her letter to Mr English on September 2, two days before the bid went in.
Mr McCully was livid at last week's meeting both at the secrecy around the TPK plan and the refusal of MTS to contemplate shared or sub-licensed coverage.
Word has it that when TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis heard about the handsome MTS bid, he offered $1 million for the last six games, but was turned down flat.
It is highly irregular for the Government to have direct contact with a chief executive - messages at operational level are conventionally conveyed through a board chairman.
But time was running out on the bid and irregular action was taken.
The upshot of the Beehive meeting was that the Maori Television board met last Friday to approve a new bid allowing for sub-licensing and TVNZ put in another bid.
The meddling by the Government has caused widespread resentment on the Maori side - the rules change as soon as Maori look like they are winning.
On the other hand, the Government could say that one of its own departments, TPK, "interfered" in a process that will probably skew the result of a commercial process.
The much loved Maori Affairs Minister, Pita Sharples, has played the "ignorance" card, having been in the role only one year, and has apologised to Mr Key for not discussing it in detail.
Mr Key with perhaps greater sensitivity than Mr McCully to Maori aspiration that the MTS bid embodies, has said an apology was not necessary.
What is needed is for Te Puni Kokiri to explain its case to the public, Mr Key has said.
Privately there is still disbelief that such a proposal was effectively kept secret from the Government.
Labour has started to excuse TPK on the basis that there has been no Maori dimension to the huge tourism strategy around the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
The "ignorance" card is one that Te Puni Kokiri and its veteran chief executive Leith Comer cannot use to explain why such a patently controversial and new spending decision was not referred to the cabinet or senior ministers earlier.
TPK could plead the case that legally it did not have to, but this is politics not law school.
It looks like they calculated that if they had consulted Government, someone like Mr McCully would have ensured it was stopped, so they did not tell until the bid was effectively in.
It is safe to assume one thing, however: it would not have progressed under Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark or her chief of staff, Heather Simpson, without them knowing, and if it had have happened without them knowing, someone's head would have rolled.
Why is Mr McCully so vexed about it? The stock answer is to suggest he and a few of his colleagues are anti-Maori.
But that is not fair.
The real answer is that Mr McCully wants maximum control - or minimum risk - not just over the Rugby World cup, but over events that will effectively overlap with the general election campaign in 2011.
For Mr McCully, a TVNZ presentation is low risk and a Maori Television presentation is high risk.
The coverage might be done so brilliantly that parties like Act New Zealand and New Zealand First are unable to make any mileage out of it at all.
But the vehemence of the public reaction this week to the possibility of 10% Maori commentary in Rugby World Cup matches, shows exactly why a political strategist like Mr McCully is justified in being nervous.
Whether the International Rugby Board cares one jot about what Mr McCully or the Government think when making its decision, is another matter - and one would think not.
In fact, it would be nothing short of scandalous if the IRB responded to the nudges and winks of the Old Boys Club to nobble what is evidently Maori Television's superior bid for the mainstream network.
If there are any villains in this, Maori Television itself is not one.
Amid the criticism it has copped in the past week, it had also attracted a lot of praise from Maori and Pakeha for its professionalism and initiative.
Maori Television is a source of pride in Maoridom.
It is held in affection - almost as much as Dr Sharples is - and therein lies Labour's dilemma.
An attack on the TPK aspect of the bid by Labour's Trevor Mallard is seen as an attack on MTS.
Mr Mallard's praise of MTS' skills is lost in translation.
It must also tread very carefully in attacking Dr Sharples.
While Labour has more than enough material and experience to make mincemeat of Dr Sharples when the House resumes next week, it would be counter- productive to do so.
It would galvanise Maori support around Dr Sharples and invite a quiet riot within its own ranks.
Labour has more than enough evidence to target Mr McCully over interference, and Mrs te Heuheu for keeping quiet too long, without even getting started on Mr Key.
- Audrey Young
