Parekura Horomia

ᔥNZ Herald

Someone has nicked hundreds of pies…not many leads…I wonder where Gerry or Parekura were yesterday?

Thieves who stole hundreds of pies from an Oamaru bakery could find their haul too hot to handle.

Police are baffled why the culprits were so greedy and have warned people to be on their guard if they are offered a large quantity of pies on the cheap.

The thieves ignored other foodstuffs when they targeted Coupland’s Bakery at the weekend.

About $850 worth of pies were taken.

Community Constable Bruce Dow asked the obvious question: “Why would anyone take that many pies?”

Transtasman has the following to say about Labour:

The Labour caucus must be a peaceful place to be these days for those who don’t seem to be doing much. A handful of MPs are showing some spirit, among them Jacinda Ardern, Sue Moroney, David Cunliffe, David Parker, Chris Hipkins, Phil Goff and Clare Curran. There’s hardly a peep from Nanaia Mahuta since she was given the education portfolio in a peace-making move after the leadership contest, Shane Jones is an invisible man, Parekura Horomia has lapsed into silence, Phil Twyford wakes up sometimes, Maryan Street is taking her health portfolio seriously but isn’t making much of an impact, not much would be heard from Andrew Little if Judith Collins wasn’t suing him for defamation and Rajen Prasad maintains a profile which isn’t on the radar. Deputy leader Grant Robertson, a very sharp operator, has to leave most of what he would like to say to David Shearer. When Robertson is front man because Shearer isn’t around he’s way better at putting Labour’s case and it’s being noticed. Shearer is at the dangerous point where, if he doesn’t start to shape up, rumours are going to start he’s going to ship out.

Yikes!

Labour is looking to the past in their review for the future:

The Labour Party has called on several friendly external advisers to help with a major review of its organisation, including US-based academic Rob Salmond and technology businessman Selwyn Pellett.

Labour leader David Shearer and President Moira Coatsworth set out the scope of a review of the party organisation and its processes yesterday – including its membership structure, list ranking process and party involvement in policy formulation.

Mr Salmond and Mr Pellett are both on an advisory group, called “critical friends,” which Ms Coatsworth said would provide critical advice and input to the review.

Mr Pellett, chief executive of Imarda and co-founder of Endace, has spoken at Labour conferences about economic reform and supported the party. However, he was critical of Labour before the 2008 election, saying then leader Phil Goff should step down.

Other “critical friends” included current MP Parekura Horomia, former MPs Margaret Wilson and Tim Barnett and former British Labour MP Bryan Gould.

Ahhh a corporate beneficiary, failed MPs, two academics, a pie eater….the prospects of any dynamic suggestions seems dim.

Ms Coatsworth said Labour’s membership was currently in the mid 50,000s but much of that was made up of affiliated union membership.

The review will be led by another team, who will consult and meet with members. That group includes current MP Nanaia Mahuta, former MP Rick Barker, Ruth Chapman and Mark Hutchinson.

Mr Horomia and Ms Mahuta are the only current caucus members with formal roles in the review.

Labour has nowhere near 50,000 members. I’d like to see the membership forms from them. This is nothing less than a fraud by counting affiliate memberships. Labour should move to get rid of affiliates, if they don;t then the government should as part of the electoral law review that always follows elections look at restricting donations and membership of politicals parties to natural persons only.

I just hope that Labour has put aside plenty of funds to fund Parekura Horomia and Nanaia Mahuta’s penchant for pies.

Annette King isn’t the only one to have defied the Leader on the question of Hone Harawira.

So it seems Phil’s Caucus aren’t even listening to him now.  Attached is just one of the many clips where he rules out working with Hone.  It was on The Nation, May 1.

Sean Okay but you haven’t said that about Hone Harawira, you heard earlier on this programme holding out the olive branch to you?Phil Yep.

Sean A man who hasn’t been found by parliament’s privilege committee to have lied to it.

Phil Let me say this. John Key brands Don Brash as an extremist but said he’ll get into bed with him. I regard Hone Harawira as having extreme views and I won’t get into bed with him.

Sean And do you think Matt McCarten does as well, and Annette Sykes?

Phil Yeah I think that that is a party that is well out of the mainstream of New Zealand.

Sean And you will have nothing to do with it?

Phil No I don’t see myself as being able to form a coalition both on the grounds of different policies and on the grounds of reliability. I’ve said that and I stand by it.

Sean Alright and you’re not gonna let the people decide on that one and then make your decision?

Phil Oh the people will decide whether they want to support a Maori Party that’s now discredited or a more radical party that I don’t think will have widespread support.

Sean But you find Winston Peters a man essentially found by the privileges committee to have misled parliament and his colleagues is a more reliable person to do a coalition deal?

Phil I’ve said I’ll let the public make the decision, as the moment it’s hypothetical. If Winston is back then we’ll look at it.

Sean Well the Privileges Committee finding against him wasn’t hypothetical, it’s written there in the parliamentary record.

Phil Yeah, look I’m not going into past history on that, Winston Peters has got a long history in politics and people will judge him on the basis of that history.

Sean Alright so you’re not gonna deal with Hone Harawira, the jury is out on New Zealand First.

Parekura Horomia: Friday 18 March 2011 Radio Waatea

“You know that’s the line at the moment. What’s interesting is Hone hasn’t got a party so the issue was about working with Hone’s numbers. It’s about the numbers on the day of the election. It’s no point (saying) who is going to be the last cab off the rank and then get to the end of an election and you’re scrambling, but at this stage that’s our line,” Mr Horomia says.

Nanaia Mahuta: 22 March 2011 Radio Waatea

“But the real proof is what happens after election 2011 and I’ve been in politics long enough to know that the wind blows both ways and you can’t rule anyone in and out before that day. That’s the day that matters,” she says.

Vote for Change have been uploading a few videos to Youtube. Here is one, I’ll start posting them here each day.

Remember these guys have the Labour party, the Greens and 6 unions all registered against them to spend thousands campaigning to retain MMP. If you ever needed a reason to Vote for Change it is the groups supporting MMP.

National has yet to find their courage to speak out on any side of the issue. Meanwhile the big money of the unions and the parliamentary coffers of the Greens and labour are being opened for the campaign.

Phil Goff thinks it is all a conspiracy, yet Matthew Hooton, me, Trans-Tasman and Tracy Watkins have all heard about what went down at teh labour front bench meeting last week.

But one senior Labour MP said the con­ver­sa­tion did hap­pen. “[Phil] did con­sult the front bench over whether he should go.”

There is a very small number of people who would have been at that meeting. One of them is blabbing and white-anting Phil Goff.

So who would have been there?

Labour’s front bench is Phil Goff, Annette King, Trevor Mallard, Parekura Horomia, Grant Robertson, David Parker, Clayton Cosgrove, David Cunliffe, Maryan Street, Charles Chauvel and Ruth Dyson.

One them is talking out of turn and white-anting Goff.

It wouldn’t be Goff or King obviously, so the number of suspects dwindles to nine.

It is unlikely to be Parekura Horomia and so we are down to eight contenders.

I can’t see Trevor Mallard doing it either, it just isn’t in his make-up to skulk in the shadows, he prefers the wet work to be in the open. So we are down to seven prospects.

Who would be so sneaky as to leak to journalists, bloggers and commentators?

All the remaining seven are touted as leader contenders or future leaders…they have motive. Do any have form?

Having such speculation known to the media and now the public is extremely damaging to Labour and to Phil Goff. He is now confirmed as a dead man walking. It also means that there is some in the seven suspects that is prepared to damage fatally the Labour party in order to further their interests.

Just who is Labour’s sneaky tattle-tale.

It is hard to imagine any a scenario where Phil Goff becomes Prime Minister after the 2011 election, unless a sex scandal or ethics scandal completely undermines National.

The Election result will determine how effective Labour can be in opposition in the next term. If Goff leads them to ruin like Bill English did to National in 2002, it will be 2017 before Labour can seriously contemplate winning an election. Too few MPs means an inability to put a government under real pressure, and too many challengers to incumbents which makes winning votes expensive and difficult.

If Labour continue to track within a band of 27-33% of the vote they are going to struggle in the next term not just because of the size of their caucus. More worrying for Labour is the deadwood that will be preventing new blood coming through and connecting with the electorate.

There are two types of deadwood, those who have limited contributions to the Labour caucus but keep out good people. In this category fit Rick Barker, Steve Chadwick and Ross Roberston. MPs like this can be safely ignored, because though they potentially hold up someone good they do not get in the way of senior Labour MPs connecting with the electorate.

The bigger problem for Labour is the second group of deadwood, deadwood that thinks it is still alive long after it has died in the minds of the public. Labour still have a large number of reasonably competent people from the Clark regime exerting huge impact on the culture and direction of Labour. These people represent the failures of the last Labour government, and have continued to recycle Clark era policies in a totally changed world. They still have expectations of making it back into cabinet, but realistically they are past their used by date and will never again be able to connect with voters on a mass scale.

Included in this group are Phil Goff, Annette King, Lianne Dalziel, Ruth Dyson, Trevor Mallard, Maryan Street, and Parekura Horomia, all assured of a place in the next parliament. While they are still around it will be difficult for the very grey men, Parker & Cunliffe to change the culture of the party, even if these people will leave Parliament in 2014.

These seven MPs will likely retire or be pushed in the next term, some potentially forcing by-elections, but while they remain in caucus they provide a huge barrier to Labour successfully rebranding and reconnecting with the public.

As a party Labour have failed to regenerate, and failed to make a clean break with the messy past. The likely outcome of this is another messy term where they are unable to make National look inept or corrupt, the key role of an opposition wanting to win back power.

hat tip 7 Days

As a country, the U.S. is known for its big portion sizes in restaurants.

But ambitious grillers took that one stage further over the weekend after setting a new world record for the largest commercially available hamburger.

The massive 777lb burger – which included a 110lb bun, 20lbs of onions, 12lbs of pickles and 30lbs of lettuce – beat the previous record holder, a Canadian creation that weighed a measly 595lbs.

Parekura Horomia's Lunch?

Some guy in the US who looks like he has a body like a half sucked throatie ate his 25,000th Big Mac yesterday. The media are in a frenzy.

I can’t see why. It took him 39 years.

A retired Wisconsin prison guard ate his 25,000th Big Mac yesterday, 39 years to the day after eating his first … nine.

Don Gorske was “honoured” after reaching the meaty milestone during a ceremony at a McDonald’s in his hometown of Fond du Lac. Surely McDonald’s most loyal customer, Guinness World Records recognised Gorske’s feat three years and 2000 Big Macs ago, and the 57-year-old says he has no desire to stop.

“I plan on eating Big Macs until I die,” he said.

Parekura Horomia would have scoffed that many in the space of one Hikoi up Queen Street.