Reverse racism?

Imagine the furore in various media circles up and down New Zealand, if all country’s major political leaders – and their various hangers-on – went off cap in hand – to the headquarters of the local Scientologists to try and curry favour with its leadership and members!
There would be thunderous editorials in all the country’s newspapers criticising the politicos for engaging with such cultists and lamenting the influence of religion on politics.
Meanwhile, the talking heads on all the television current affairs shows would be in near apoplexy at the very idea of our leading politicians currying favour with such a strange religious institution.
So how come the annual pilgrimage to Ratana Pa - by Uncle Tom Cobley and all of the key New Zealand political movers and shakers - does not raise a collective eyebrow?
Let’s get real; Ratana is nothing more than a very minor and strange religious cult. From my observation, the only difference between TW Ratana and L. Ron Hubbard is that the latter has a lot more followers around the world than the long, deceased and self-professed Maori prophet.
According to Ratana followers, the basis of their religion comes out of the late Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana seeing a vision, which he regarded as divinely inspired. Apparently the said vision asked Ratana to preach the gospel to the Maori people, destroy the power of the tohunga (Maori spiritualism) and to cure the spirits and bodies of his people. Ratana established a name for himself as the "Maori Miracle Man". Initially, the movement was seen as a Christian revival, but it soon moved away from mainstream churches.
Meanwhile, Scientology is based on the teachings of the late L. Ron Hubbard – another self-professed religious leader. Hubbard taught that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their true nature. Scientology backs a method of spiritual rehabilitation in which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects. In many countries, Scientology is not recognised as a mainstream religion.
So what is the difference? How come the Scientologist are not receiving annual delegations of New Zealand political parties?
Would the media be so accommodating if John Key and Phil Goff trudged off to the impress the leadership of the Catholic, Anglican or Presbyterian Churches at Easter?
I doubt it!
Is there not some political rule about the separation of church and state in New Zealand?
Is this not just reverse racism?
Do media in New Zealand turn a (colour) blind eye to the rather unseemly and weird rush by the nation’s leading politicians to Ratana every year because this religion is the sole domain of Maori?
Can someone fill me in? I am confused.