Tau Henare wanted to be Speaker of the House so much, he could taste it. But to be the Speaker of the House, you have to be diplomatic and not take sides.
Somehow, I don’t think he would have lasted very long.
Never mind the foibles of MMP, let’s just throw someone out of the house simply on the basis that they are speaking about an issue that has very little public support, but got him and his party legally elected.
I caught this on the radio when a snippet of an interview with Tau Henare was broadcast about his ambitions and rekindled hopes to become Speaker of the House now that Labour are playing silly games about the selection of David Carter.
credit: guide2.co.nz
I do not have the exact quote, but Henare said (paraphrased) Read more »
When Hekia Parata was promoted to the education portfolio, she was pegged by some as a future leader, ruffling a few feathers among her colleagues.
All the ingredients were there – a rags to riches back story, professional success and powerful mentors, including Finance Minister Bill English and Prime Minister John Key, who saw in her an echo of his own rise to the top.
But she also had the all important X-factor – supreme self-assurance, an engaging personality and a guffawing laugh that could fill a room.
As blunders mounted one on top of the other in the education portfolio, however, Ms Parata’s poise deserted her. Hard questions were met with obfuscation and, when under stress, she reached for the bureaucrat’s trick of papering over the cracks with jargon.
The pressure began to tell in other, more personal, ways. Beehive insiders talk about a tense and poisonous atmosphere within her ministerial office, brought on by an increasingly demanding minister, who was out of her depth and casting around for others to blame.
The only part Tracy Watkins left out was that Hekia lobbied hard for the Education portfolio, she elbowed Tolley out of the way believing and selling the PM that she could do a better a job.
Why Hekia being a total disaster as Education Minister surprises anyone is a shock. She is an arrogant, unpleasant bully, and was called out by this blog on November 14th 2010 when Audrey Young, who should know better, wrote a hagiographic article about Hekia.
Fairfax and APN editors should start asking a few questions of their political journalists. They have really dropped the ball on this one. They should ask the following questions:
After losing five parliamentary Executive Assistants in the first two years in parliament, do they think Hekia will front the next CTU anti 90 day advertisement?
Are they aware that if you lose four EAs in around a year Parliamentary Services remove your right to recruit your own office staff?
Do they know why the Maori Affairs select committee had a change of personnel? And was it because Hekia was publicly yelling at Tau Henare, who was actually in the same party as her, for those press gallery reporters who were in some doubt?
Have they scrutinised her employment record in her career before she entered parliament?
Are they confident she would be able to run a ministerial office, and work with departmental chief executives and staff, or would they need a special golden handshake fund for her department?
Hekia Parata might make a good person to be the MP for Mana, but being one of Bill English’s acolytes and having a rotating door on staff at a rate equal to or better than McCully doesn’t make her a good prospect for cabinet.
There are better choices and ones who would be more effective.
The omnishambles that has been Hekia’s tenure as minister of education was clearly predictable. The questions above should have alerted enough the most bovine journalistic intellect to the problems Hekia would face.
The only real question for John Key is will he let someone he would have instantly fired at Merrill Lynch continue to pull him down in the polls?
An eagle eyed long-time reader spotted the horribly sanctimonious Holly Walker yesterday making a mockery of Parliament’s dress code in an attempt to be taken less seriously than Kermit the Frog as she sits with the adults.
I look forward to Eric Roy, Tau Henare, Chris Tremain and Todd McClay wearing gumboots in Parliament and seeing how that goes down with the Speaker if they do a bit of duck shooting from their mai-mai.
Walker’s female co-Leader has purple hair. Are the Greens in a competition to make the Maori Party seem dignified and well attired? The rest of Walker’s outfit is bad enough. A man cannot get away with looking as disheveled.
Women must wear “normal business attire”. A female farmer would not wear gumboots in the city if they had to walk on carpet. Walker’s are probably cheap and from The Warehouse so she cannot claim them to even be a Jimmy Choo/Hunter fashion item. They also break the “no dickheads” rule. Only rural New Zealanders and blue collar workers should ever wear gumboots. Anyone wearing them from a city looks like a dickhead.
But Winston Peters, noted for his sartorial credentials, said he didn’t think that leather jackets and cardigans were what New Zealanders expected to see when they came to Parliament.
He had observed relaxed dress standards among men in the Danish Parliament. “They looked like Brown’s cows.”
There was an insignificantly ranked MP from the Cook Islands government seated in Parliament yesterday. Dressed in her form of business attire she must have been sniggering wondering why she bothered. She will return to the Cook Islands and laugh with tales to the jandal wearers at Trader Jacks that New Zealand is so backward she saw an MP in their Parliament wearing gumboots.
UPDATE: Some self important spokesperson from the Greens has rung me to clarify that they were not gumboots…they were in fact Green leather boots…I remarked they still look like gumboots.
One thing that does come to mind though…Is Holly Walker a vegetarian/vegan?
One upside of the Australian MP’s kicking to touch marriage equality is that New Zealand is now open to GLBT tourist weddings. Australian gay and lesbian couples can come to New Zealand and tie the knot.
Because Susanne, 56, and Mike 58, are devout Christians and only allow married heterosexual couples to book into their double rooms. And Michael Black and John Morgan, who hail from Cambridgeshire and have been together for nearly ten years, are gay.
‘I’d had a booking from a Mr Black for the Zurich room — a nice big double with an en-suite,’ explains Susanne. ‘And, naturally, I assumed it was for Mr and Mrs Black. But as I helped them manoeuvre their car into the drive, I realised they were two men and I thought: “Oh dear, this isn’t a situation I can go along with.” ’
They seem to discriminate against unmarried heterosexual couples as well.
The couple even banned a family member from sharing a room with her boyfriend. ‘That caused a bit of a scene. But you have to be consistent and honest.’
Goodness, very conservative. You would think they were running a hotel in the Middle East.
Tau Henare went to extreme lengths of actually marrying his missus to travel to the Middle East for a troughing trip. I asked Cactus Kate how she travelled in the Middle East and rather stoop to Henare’s extremes she just broke the law and signed in at the front desk as travelling with her father then was faced with a suite with two single beds. Then didn’t go back.
The All Blacks seem to share rooms when they travel. Under this sort of regime they could not.
Jane Clifton gives us a fascinating insight into what the Press Gallery girls gossiped about at the water coolers photocopier in the “old days”.
The new member for Te Tai Tokerau was slim and fit, had a full head of wavy hair, and was generally agreed to be the most attractive male specimen to hit the lobbies in a long time.
How does Tau rate now? May we ask?
It is pretty damn hard for a proud Maori to go red but Tau may be blushing the next time he comes into contact with the Cougars of the Gallery – Jane, Audrey and Fran knowing they once had a giggle the same way the Gen Y’s now do for Simon Bridges, Gareth Hughes and Chris Hipkins.
I don’t know what Tau has done to offend a lady but Clifton has now publicly shanked him as her “wild card” choice and bet heavily for Maurice as the next Speaker.
