Hone Harawira aka John Hatfield is just taking the piss now.
Mana Party leader has been absent for 49 of the 120 sitting days since the 2011 election.
Mana leader Hone Harawira described himself as going “to battle for those without a voice in Parliament” at his party’s conference this month but he has been a rare sight in Parliament this year. Read more »
Excuse me if I don’t just laugh till my tits fall off. John Minto wants to be Mayor.
I’ll bet he has Martyn Bradbury working assiduously in his campaign team.
Veteran activist John Minto is asking his political party to approve a run for mayor of Auckland. The trade unionist and teacher said Mayor Len Brown had disappointed him.
“What has Len Brown done which is different to what John Banks would have done if he were in? You struggle to find many significant things.” Read more »
The Maori party and Mana party have been very vociferous in calling for bans for all tobacco in the general population. Hone Harawira and Tariana Turia in particular are on public record as harsh opponents of smoking. Turia demanded some sort of health portfolio when negotiating with National for the coalition arrangements precisely to push through anti-smoking measures.
Turia just 8 months ago was calling for the shaming of people who smoke in cars:
Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has suggested drivers should show their disapproval of others smoking in cars carrying children by tooting at them and wagging their finger like Supernanny scolding a child.
Hone Harawira has said in the past, when he was part of the Maori party:
MP Hone Harawira, who is drafting the private member’s bill, said it was “not about trying to penalise the poor addicts who are smoking cigarettes”.
“But the tobacco companies can go to hell. We will no longer sacrifice our generations so you can make profits.”
“I can’t believe how we could have allowed this to carry on. This actually kills people and yet it’s legal.” Read more »
Helen Kelly’s endorses Cameron Slater’s work for the Unions at the Labour Conference 2012 – by the Owl
Front and centre stage – there she was in full light and radiant smile.
That soon turned to grief as she read stories of young men dying at work from our nation’s poor health and safety culture. A great read and the touchstone of how desperate we are as a nation to reconcile work place safety and building a good business model.
I nodded and agreed as the words flowed off her well written and delivered speech. The Owl has always supported health and safety measures
Then as I was almost crushed at my failure to not speak out more on these issues as a citizen…I was truly inspired…then Helen moved from saving our sons to you guessed it …the Ports.
My eyes lit up only to find that the biggest reason the Ports strike became a national issue was because of none other than CAMERON SLATER.
Helen Kelly credits Cameron Slater for helping the Maritime Union and the Unions in getting the nation to support the Port workers.
I quote direct from her speech:
“The Port’s plans attracted little outrage from the political community outside of Labour and the Greens. Only when it deliberately breached the privacy of some of its workers to blogger Cameron Slater, did any other politician express true outrage. It was ok to dismiss and replace the workforce, but not to breach their privacy. ”
Observation by the Owl
So that meant, National, Act, Mana Party, The Maori Party and NZ First didn’t give a damn. 60% of Politicians were quite happy the way things were going until Cameron Slater put his nose in.
I would have a guess that Greens didn’t give a damn either because their mandate would be to close down wharfs anyway.
However I finally found the road block to the stalled negotiations in her speech on Saturday. She wrote:
“The Port has not moved in the facilitation – I have attended many of them”.
MUNZ went nuts and filed a claim of breach of good faith at POAL about breaching the Facilitators confidentiality agreement and yet NZCTU President who has attended “most” breaches the rules and delivers the details to a national conference.
More major governance issues at the NZCTU and a complete lack of understanding of ‘good faith bargaining” from the gatekeeper.
I would bet a $1.00 she had to sign a confidentiality agreement or at least been party to it.
PS: is there something going on between Cam and Helen????
Hone Harawira has denied that he has called fellow Maori MPs “house niggers”….just National’s maori MPs:
Mana Party leader Hone Harawira was talking about National’s Maori MPs when he referred to Prime Minister John Key’s “little house niggers”, he says.
Harawira was responding to Key’s refusal to let National MPs attend a hui on water rights to be hosted by the Maori King, next week.
Riiiiight, that makes it so much better.
So non-National MPs are ok with Hone but if you are a National MP and Maori, then you are a “house nigger”.
Hone Harawira is a disgrace. Imagine of John Banks had used that term the outrage that would be flowing from Harawira enablers like Martyn Bradbury and others of his ilk.
The politics of hate is so un-becoming.
It looks like Hone Harawira is going to gift Rotorua to Todd McClay for life:
A war of words has erupted over National MP Todd McClay’s proposed gang patch ban, with Mana Party leader Hone Harawira labelling him a “foolish dickhead” promoting a “deeply racist” bill.
Harawira has threatened to wear a gang patch into Parliament if the bill becomes law, a move McClay says casts doubts on Harawira’s suitability to be an MP.
“The guy is such an idiot,” Harawira said. “I’m not going to stand by and watch a blonde, blue-eyed redneck kick around poor people who, out of desperation, bond together because they see nothing in the blonde, blue-eyed society to give them a sense of hope for their own or their children’s futures.”
Harawira said he was “not a great lover of gangs” but said McClay’s pledge that government agencies would not deal with anyone wearing a patch, and that police would want to talk to them about criminal behaviour, was nonsense.
“The fact of the matter is that this foolish dickhead doesn’t know what’s going to happen. The police aren’t interested in this. It’s not going to be deep-blonde white-boy Todd that’s going to be affected, it’s going to be those working in the agencies.”
The only foolish dickhead is Hone Harawira. Rotorua looks to be safe in McClay’s hands for sometime yet.
The continuation of David Garrett’s guest posts on the Rise and Fall of the Act Party.
Previous installments: Part one, Part two.
In April 2011 Rodney Hide told Don Brash he would support Brash as leader of ACT, thus putting to an end what was in effect a hostile takeover, and the public washing of dirty laundry which was by then occurring almost daily. Things came to a head rather quickly, which meant the “setup” the day after the leadership change was odd, to say the least.
Brash was the leader of a party he had joined two days before, but had no seat in the House. Rodney and John Boscawen were both MP’s and Ministers of the Crown. Brash wanted Rodney gone – from parliament if not the earth – because Brash viewed Hide as “toxic”, and the proximate cause of all of ACT’s problems. In his imagined perfect world, Hide would simply disappear, and be replaced as MP for Epsom by John Banks, a man who did not seem any kind of “fit” with many of ACT’s principles.
However, Hide had the confidence of the Prime Minister, and was also committed to being the “best MP for Epsom”, a position he had won and then held at two successive general elections. He saw no reason to resign from either position, and in my view he was quite justified in seeing things that way. Whether one agreed or disagreed with Hide’s strategic view, there had never been any question of his competence or work rate, either as a Minister or an MP.
ACT MP John Boscawen looks on at a press conference after the first ACT Party Caucus Meeting on May 3, 2011 in Wellington, New Zealand. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
The situation was ripe for the kind of shambles that is now ironically being played out a year or so later – an ongoing and unwelcome distraction for the government, and daily further ignominy for ACT. Thankfully for all concerned, fate had delivered John Boscawen as Deputy Leader of the Party, a man disliked by no-one important, and trusted by anyone who mattered as an honest broker.
One could write another book – albeit an unsaleable one – on the machinations which occurred in an attempt to resolve the apparent impasse. When the smoke cleared, Brash had agreed not to continue trying to rid himself of Hide “by lunch time”, Hide had agreed to step down at the 2014 election, Boscawen became the leader of the parliamentary caucus, and the bit players continued their roles.
While all this was happening, back at party HQ Brash was selling the idea of his mate Banks succeeding Hide as candidate and then MP for Epsom. Those with much longer track records in ACT than me remain puzzled how Brash convinced the Board to accept Banks as the vehicle for bringing Brash himself, and presumably one or two others into parliament at the 2014 election.
Everyone else has a theory, so here’s mine. Brash had promised the Board two things if he was leader of the Party. First, that he would bring in large sums of money which would not be forthcoming if Hide remained. Second, he would increase the Party’s vote at the election later in the year to at least 15%. It is hugely ironic given the public perception of ACT as “the rich pricks party” that in the first quarter of 2011 it was as usual broke, and scrabbling to pay the bills.
We now know that the party managed to raise and spend almost $1.3 million at the 2011 election. Presumably, some of that money had begun to flow in as soon as Brash became leader. If so, it seems credible to assume that the Board were persuaded that Brash was indeed the new messiah – after all he had pulled off a coup that had seemed laughable only weeks before, and his promises of being able to deliver money were coming to fruition. Surely a party vote of 15% – Brash apparently thought it would be more like 40% – was as deliverable as the money? As long as they followed the prescription of the good doctor.
So Banks was confirmed as MP in waiting in Epsom, and the train clattered on, its couplings increasingly strained, but still in one piece. For a while, it must have seemed that the storm clouds had cleared, and after November 2011, there would be a solid ACT caucus of Brash, Banks, John Boscawen and two or three others. Senior ACToids have apparently always been very optimistic.
Then, a new bombshell. John Boscawen announced he would not contest the election and would retire from politics “to spend more time with his family”, a well used political cliché normally employed to cover up something sinister. Since John is unmarried and has no children, it was assumed by the feverish media that the real reason for John’s decision must surely be something else. Wrong again. John meant exactly what he said, and knowing him as I do, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had to explain to him what the cliche normally meant.
For me, the next seemingly inexplicable decision was to abandon the Party’s law and order focus completely in favour of education and the usual “market forces and deregulation” economic policies. This despite the Party having achieved a major victory in the “three strikes” legislation, and for that and other reasons, having the tacit support of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, probably New Zealand’s most effective lobby group.
The appointment of a 25 year old university student as Justice Spokesman, and the concurrent release of some totally silly policies led quickly to Garth McVicar publicly telling his supporters that ACT had lost its way, and urging them to consider which other party best articulated SST’s goals. This was a not-so-subtle steer in the direction of the fledging Conservatives. The result? ACT got a lower Party vote than the Mana Party, and the Conservatives – which none of the pundits had taken seriously – got 2.8%, six months after being formed. Coincidence? Who knows.
Then three months after the worst election result in its history, the Banks fiasco. A week is certainly a long time in politics, and who knows what the coming sitting week will bring. Every political columnist has a theory or a prediction. The end of the week could see anything from Banks resigning from parliament – which in my view is unlikely – to the vultures in the mainstream media finding some new sideshow upon which to demonstrate how far the fourth estate has fallen since the likes of Ian Templeton or even Barry Soper began their careers as political journalists.
I understand that much of the debacle surrounding Banks stems from his refusal to take advice – which must surely have been to STFU and keep his head down. As Rodney Hide noted last Sunday, Banks is a politician from another era. He was used to Ministers giving press conferences – from which they might exclude journos they didn’t like. He was used to a time when journalists called Ministers “Mister” and wouldn’t dream of chasing them through building lobbies thrusting microphones up their noses. He must think he has mysteriously found himself elected to a foreign and not the New Zealand parliament. As they say, the past is another country.
Can ACT survive all this? Who knows. Hide and others have pointed out that ACT has been written off many times, but Phoenix like, somehow always rises again. For what it is worth, I doubt it can survive the collective blows inflicted on it which I have traversed in these three posts. Even if it does manage to stay alive to contest the next election, if the Conservative Party can avoid being branded “just another bunch of God botherers” and do significantly better than ACT in 2014, I believe, with some sadness, that would indeed be the final ACT, and the end of a remarkable story.
Matt McCarten and Chris Trotter are at odds with each other after David Shearer’s big speech failed to really fire.
McCarten says it is good that Labour is moving to the centre:
My Labour mates who didn’t support Shearer in their leadership ballot last year now feel justified.
But they miss the point. I believed Shearer had a better chance of becoming Prime Minister in the next election than any of his colleagues on offer. Under MMP, it’s not the biggest party that wins, it’s the leader of the main party who can form a majority coalition.
If Shearer went further to the left, he wouldn’t grow the coalition but merely succeed in taking votes off his potential allies – the Greens, Mana and NZ First. He’d lose the next election.
That’s why I can see why he believes he has to move to the centre. This opens up space on his left for those three parties to increase their support, promoting more progressive policies than his party does. These parties are already on the left of Labour, on economics anyway, and the Greens and Mana are also on social policy.
After the next election, if these three support parties expand their numbers, they can make legitimate demands that any Labour-led government would have to adopt. It’s called having your cake and eating it, too.
Chris Trotter is not so pleased:
But, is Matt justified in assuming that Labour’s coalition partners will be either inclined, or permitted, to keep their nerve and negotiate an agreement at significant odds with that of the dominant coalition partner?
If, as Matt concedes, Labour’s political trajectory is now firmly set; from Goff’s hesitant (and personally discordant) leftism, to Shearer’s eager embrace of the policies associated with the conservative Finnish prime minister, Esko Aho; then a 2014 “win” by Labour will be attributed (both by itself and the right-wing news media) to the electorate’s endorsement of the very same policies. In this context, the ability of the smaller left-wing parties to “force” Labour to embrace radical policy initiatives – policies already “rejected” by a clear majority of voters – will be extremely limited.
The other problem with Matt’s analysis is that it makes no allowance for the impact a right-wing Labour Party is bound to have on the national (with a small “n”) political environment. By reinforcing the Right’s overall ideological dominance, Labour will make it that much harder for all political parties to evince radical left-wing ideas.
This is likely to be especially true of the Greens, who, having broken through the 10 percent threshold in 2011, will be especially reluctant to revert, at least in the public’s imagination, to once again being a radical party of the political fringe. In other words, if Labour shifts to the Right, the Greens are much more likely to shadow them than they are to increase the ideological distance between them. New Zealand leftists should not forget that the Green’s dramatically improved their electoral position in 2011 by tacking to the Right – not the Left.
Trotter also suggests that the Mana party are too poor, dumb abd stupid to actually deliver anything either than an angry hone Harawira to parliament.
Matt’s thesis would be much stronger if the Mana Party could be relied upon to motivate and mobilise a significant proportion of the 2011 “Non-Vote” of close to three-quarters-of-a-million New Zealanders. But building a truly mass-party of the Left is almost certainly beyond the intellectual, organisational and financial resources of Mana. And even if, by some political miracle, Hone Harawira proved equal to the task of creating a massive new block of radicalised voters from harassed and impoverished workers and beneficiaries, the change his success would bring to the national political environment would, almost certainly, see Labour tacking back towards the Left. In the circumstances of an electoral uprising of beneficiaries and the working poor, the political centre would no longer be a safe place for Labour to be found.
No matter which angle is valid it is pleasing to see the left wing at odds with each other.
Desperation is indeed a stinky cologne:
Labour Party leader David Shearer has opened the door to discussions with Mana Party leader Hone Harawira.
Mr Shearer’s predecessor, Phil Goff, explicitly ruled out any kind of relationship with Mr Harawira.
The new leader says he will respect ideas wherever they come from, including from the Mana Party.
He says he does not have any baggage with the Mana Party.
“I’ll take them as I find them and if they turn out to be somebody I can’t work with, I’ll make that determination then.”
Mr Shearer says he has already met with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and the Green Party co-leaders.
Mr Harawira says he welcomes the opportunity to sit down with Labour to start planning a united opposition to what he calls the anti-worker, anti-beneficiary policy that National is rolling out.
News that a Norwegian loony and others, including a Mana Party activist have sailed to the Antarctic, and planted a Mana party flag in the polar ice can only bring us joy.
The so-called accidental stowaway on a Norwegian sailor’s expedition to Antarctica is said to be a Maori political activist who has planted a Mana Party flag in the polar ice.
Adventurer Jarle Andhoy abruptly sailed his boat Nilaya out of Auckland last month, after Immigration NZ served him with a deportation notice.
Aboard was an unnamed New Zealander who was said to have been working below decks repairing the anchor when the boat departed.
But the Herald on Sunday has been told the New Zealander joined the boat trip deliberately.
He is 53-year-old South Aucklander Busby Noble, an acquaintance of one of the three men who died on Andhoy’s last Antarctic expedition.
Mana Party candidate Kereana Pene said he spoke to Noble by satellite phone this week, after the Nilaya reached Antarctica.
Noble had marked his arrival on the continent by planting a Mana Party flag he had taken with him.
Is this the first recorded case of geese migrating to the cold, rather than away from it?
Speaking of loonies on expeditions…. time for some Monty Python!
