Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 7th, 2012 - 14 comments
No Right Turn on another sad chapter for democracy in NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, February 7th, 2012 - 127 comments
Mana, NZF, the Greens, and even the Maori Party, are suddenly grabbing the asset sales issue from Labour, just when it actually started to be a really valuable issue to lead on. Shearer should stop playing pundit on whether the Maori Party will go and how ‘unstable’ that makes the government. Instead, realise the broad base of opposition to asset sales and build a coalition to stop them.
Written By: - Date published: 6:24 am, February 6th, 2012 - 171 comments
While Key was away on his 4-week holiday in Hawaii, the world economy deteriorated, reports on the dire state of poverty in our country came out, and access to strategic resources became a pressing issue – both with our farmland being bought and Iran threatening to close off the globe’s oil supply. But Key was working on a plan – to stoke up racial dissent at home.
Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, February 1st, 2012 - 76 comments
The Maori Party is threatening to leave the government over the asset sales legislation removing the companies’ Treaty obligations. Key knows their threat is hollow. He just got away for 3 years of insulting Maori and worsening Maori statistics. Why would Sharples and Turia take a pay cut and lose their limos for their last few months working before retirement?
Written By: - Date published: 2:04 pm, January 31st, 2012 - 86 comments
News in on the Herald says the Maori party are talking the talk over National’s latest insult to Maori.
Will they quit the Government? Or will the smell of those limo seats mean another backdown in a couple of weeks?
Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, December 16th, 2011 - 16 comments
Brian Fellow wrote a piece in the Herald yesterday on how NZ has too many ministers. Hard not to agree. 28 ministers. Nearly half of the governing parties’ MPs. 90+ portfolios. Ministerial warrants are clearly being used to keep backbenchers and minor parties in line. Too many do nothing ministers on big salaries while the rest of us have to cut back.
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, December 7th, 2011 - 22 comments
David Small offers his views on offers his views on the Mana party effects on left politics in NZ.
Where to now for progressive electoral politics in Aotearoa?
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, November 29th, 2011 - 91 comments
I’m calling it right now. This is last election where the Maori Party’s will return MPs. It has gone from 5 to 3 MPs, 2 of whom are retiring this term, and the survivors have had their majorities slashed (on the back of scandalously low turnouts). Turia and Sharples will take the baubles again, which will just be the final nails in the party’s coffin.
Written By: - Date published: 5:41 pm, October 29th, 2011 - 42 comments
Opening addresses from the remaining parties screen on TV1 starting at 7:30pm. Should be good fun for political junkies, make sure you tune in…
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, August 26th, 2011 - 8 comments
Waihoroi Shortland, the Maori Party candidate in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate, has been warned to “Watch your back, lest it be bitten by the Maori Party dogs”. An extraordinary warning from an extraordinary source…
Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, August 9th, 2011 - 48 comments
The Maori Party leaders have racked up the highest ministerial expenses after the PM – despite not being in Cabinet. What is even more extraordinary is Tariana Turia’s response to being questioned on this.
Written By: - Date published: 7:34 am, August 7th, 2011 - 48 comments
Like the American debt limit deal, I always thought that Mana and Maori would find some kind of bloody compromise at the eleventh hour. But they’ve passed the point of no return now.
Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, July 12th, 2011 - 79 comments
Last night, two ministers went head to head calling each other racists but it looked more like two old hobos fighting over a tin of beans. Pathetic, really. Meanwhile, Key has sided with Brash and dismissed the offense many Kiwis feel over the ads by saying he doesn’t “give a toss” about ACT’s racist ads.
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, July 11th, 2011 - 18 comments
There were two ways that the Mana vs Maori Party confrontation could have gone. Cooperation could have been could for both, competition will see both diminished. Guess which option the Maori party has chosen…
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, July 6th, 2011 - 23 comments
The 1,916 special votes got pared to 769. Of which Hone Harawira got 454 and Kelvin Davis got 204. There really isn’t anything in it with a by-election majority of 1117. It will make this a tight contest at election time because Labour will now view this electorate as being quite winnable. IMHO as an long time electorate campaigner, some of the Mana supporters have been over-blowing their result.
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, June 22nd, 2011 - 25 comments
Were Tariana Turia’s comments on her own candidate in the Te Tai Tokerau by-election some kind of cunning plan, or just a simple stuff-up?
Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, May 17th, 2011 - 14 comments
Morgan Godfrey’s blog Maui Street is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand Maori politics. His latest post provides a fascinating insight into the decline of the Maori Party.
His prognosis? “Grim”.
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, May 16th, 2011 - 42 comments
Reading Don Brash’s letter to John Key and watching Roger Douglas on Q+A, I wonder if the Nats behind the takeover of ACT realised what they were unleashing. I’ve heard some talk that ACT won’t vote for Key’s Budget. Where would that leave Rodney Hide? Where would that leave the Maori Party? Could we see a snap election?
Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, May 12th, 2011 - 68 comments
We have a date for what promises to be a fascinating by election. The pressure is on Hone Harawira…
Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, May 11th, 2011 - 38 comments
Labour has decided to stand Kelvin Davis in the Te Tai Tokerau by-election. I wish they hadn’t. First, Davis strikes me as quality and you don’t tarnish quality by making it lose in front of a national audience. Look what happened to Melissa Lee, former National rising star. And Davis will lose, let’s be honest.
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, May 10th, 2011 - 106 comments
What a lot of fuss about Titewhai Harawira and daughter heckling Tariana Turia. Perhaps those expressing outrage at yesterday’s events would do well to reflect for a while on the source of the Harawiras’ anger.
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, May 9th, 2011 - 83 comments
News this morning that (as predicted) the Maori Party will be standing a candidate against Hone Harawira if he forces a by election in Te Tai Tokerau.
Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, May 1st, 2011 - 127 comments
The Maori Party has cast aside its word not to stand against Hone Harawira.
They’ve bought themselves a no holds barred fight with Mana.
Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, April 9th, 2011 - Comments Off
The first cracks are appearing in the agreement between Hone Harawira and the Maori Party not to stand against each other in electorates.
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 6th, 2011 - 55 comments
Shivering in your earthquake-damaged home, wondering how you’ll come up with $190 a week for a campervan after your emergency benefit ends? Living on cat food because GST and price hikes put real food out of reach? Don’t worry, Pita Sharples to the rescue: he’s gifting 1.9 million taxpayer dollars to a hapu in his electorate to build an inflatable, plastic waka.
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, April 2nd, 2011 - 37 comments
A new Horizon poll suggests that Pita Sharples’ majority in Tamaki Makaurau has been slashed by 80% and he could be overtaken by Labour’s Shane Jones. There’s a bit of scuttlebutt that Willie Jackson might run for Hone’s new Left/Maori Party (if it gets off the ground). In that case, expect a real three-way race, which Sharples would almost certainly lose.
Written By: - Date published: 4:07 pm, March 22nd, 2011 - 11 comments
Around 300 hikoi marchers arrived at Parliament this afternoon to protest against the Nat / Maori Party rebranded version of the foreshore and seabed bill. The numbers weren’t huge, but the hikoi brought a powerful symbolic message.
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, March 15th, 2011 - 75 comments
Labour leader Phil Goff has ruled out working with Hone Harawira even if Mr Harawira heads a party of several MPs. I think it’s a foolish decision and I think the reasons don’t stack up. Instead of ruling out Hariwria, Labour should rise to the challenge.
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, March 10th, 2011 - 19 comments
Hone Hariwira’s speech on the second reading of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill. Agree with him or not, there is no denying the passion. The Maori Party may have made a huge mistake in pushing him out, thus leaving him free to speak his mind…
Written By: - Date published: 3:21 pm, February 23rd, 2011 - 62 comments
Radio New Zealand are reporting that Hone Harawira and the Maori Party have decided to go their separate ways after the Maori Party disciplinary committee recommended he be thrown out. In a more peaceful resolution than the acrimony that has surrounded their dispute, they have decided that Hone can stick to Te Tai Tokerau, and …
Written By: - Date published: 4:09 pm, February 22nd, 2011 - 46 comments
With everyone quite rightly focussed on the destruction in Christchurch, the Maori Party have kicked out Hone Harawira and cancelled his membership.
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