A lesson learned about Hawaii politics was taught one night back in the 1980s, while I was waiting outside a closed-door legislative meeting.

The meeting was supposed to be open, but it wasn’t, and as the lawmakers darted out the door I said to one, "Aren’t you guys breaking the law?"

He replied, "We don’t break the laws, we make the laws."

Lesson learned.

So now in 2014, the state Legislature is confronted with changing a state law that vastly upgrades some real estate holdings.

This is one of those moments when the hypocritical intersection of government and politics becomes obvious.

The state Office of Hawaiian Affairs was given 31 acres of state-owned Kakaako Makai land by Gov. Neil Abercrombie in a 2012 settlement of OHA claims for ceded land revenue.

If OHA is to see the land become worth the $200 million Abercrombie said it was worth when he gave it up, the Legislature has to change the law.

Today it is against the law for OHA to put high-rise residential condos on its land because in 2006, residential development was banned by the Legislature in reaction to overwhelming citizen protests of development plans.

If the Abercrombie-OHA offer had been candid, the law formalizing the land transfer in 2012 would have also dropped the residential development restriction, but both OHA and the administration insisted that the deal had to be passed unamended, and hypocrisy ruled the day.

As Soulee Stroud, president of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs essentially said in testimony asking for the change, everything is not as it seems in the Legislature.

"It was a rude awakening to later learn that perhaps it wasn’t such a good deal once the rules, regulations and public hostility become reality," she said.

The hostility is because the public fought hard to get the Kakaako Makai change and to keep condominiums off the property. Commercial development, recreational development and other plans are allowed, but not the towers that are starting to soar across Ala Moana in Kakaako Mauka.

Kakaako, thanks to the Hawaii Community Development Authority’s understanding and acceptance of variances and exclusions and exemptions from the rules, is a demonstration that what government says today need not be what it says tomorrow.

"If the state allows this kind of ‘variance law’ to pass, then the original law prohibiting this kind of activity in Kakaako and the Kewalo Basin area will become useless to protect Hawaii‘s future generations from over-development," said Al Frenzel, with Malama Makaha, during House hearing on the bill to allow condos for OHA.

The argument being made is that OHA is asking for permission to develop only three parcels and that none would block ocean views. What is not explained is that if the law now says "none" and it is changed to say "three," there is nothing stopping OHA from returning and asking for more exemptions.

There is another catch in all this.

At the same time that the Legislature is moving along to "let OHA develop Kakaako Makai," there is another bill pushed by critics of the HCDA that would restrict or limit the HCDA’s power and perhaps change the composition of the board.

Because OHA would still be bound by HCDA rulings, it might be that actually seeing condos on OHA land could be more complicated.

Either way, the lesson learned is that today’s antidevelopment law can easily become tomorrow’s speedway to another wall of concrete on the shoreline.

And the fellow who pointed out that his buddies in the Legislature don’t break laws, they make them? That was former state Sen. Neil Abercrombie.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.

CORRECTION:  Al Frenzel is with Malama Makaha. An earlier version of this story and the story in Sunday’s print edition said he was with Malama Makua.