Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, February 16th, 2012 - 93 comments
Why do we tolerate, indeed sometimes glorify, thoroughly toxic commentators and “media figures” in NZ? It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is, of course, that it’s all about the money…
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: 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: 6:30 pm, June 13th, 2011 - 9 comments
Could be worth watching Native Affairs on Maori television tonight at 8:30. The Te Tai Tokerau candidates will be debating and it appears there may be a very interesting poll result in the offing. The Herald’s story today on a different sort of poll is headlined “Voters back Harawira, but only by a whisker.” It could go down to the wire.
Update: Hone 41, Kelvin 40
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: 7:52 pm, May 10th, 2011 - 19 comments
It was good to hear Mike Williams as the voice of the left on Nine to Noon yesterday. It is high time that someone from the broad left had the mike, to coin a phrase. Mike “spat on the altar” and had a friendly go at his mate Matt McCarten’s strategy for a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau, a kind of joust of the gurus. He thinks Matt made a mistake there, and I agree.
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: 8:51 pm, May 5th, 2011 - 158 comments
Hone Harawira left himself open to attack with his comments on Te Karere.
But that doesn’t excuse the disgraceful beat-up executed so well by the right’s smear machine.
If this is how the election is gonna play out it’ll be no good for anyone.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 pm, May 4th, 2011 - 217 comments
Righto. I’ve just watched the debate between Harawira and Brash on Close Up and about five minutes fifty into the second part Brash had the gall to challenge Harawira on whether he believed everyone should have the same rights.
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, May 2nd, 2011 - 37 comments
The Mana Party already have a great website that suggests someone who knows what they’re doing is looking after the communications. Well worth taking a quick look.
Written By: - Date published: 12:29 pm, April 29th, 2011 - 215 comments
Via Socialist Aotearoa, an open letter from union activist Mike Treen on Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, which is due to be launched this Saturday in Auckland. The outline of Mana’s manifesto presented in the letter suggests it will be economically bold and not exclusively Maori nationalist. It should be very popular.
Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, April 25th, 2011 - 48 comments
Hone Harawira is set to launch his Mana Party next weekend, possibly triggering a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau at the same time. At the other end of the spectrum, Don Brash’s haphazard to take over ACT may actually just be casus belli for him to establish a New Right Party.
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: 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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, February 16th, 2011 - 37 comments
The Maori Party handling of rebel MP Hone Harawira has been a complete mess. The latest bizarre chapter in the story is the gagging of Harawira with “a complete media ban” to be “strictly observed by the Maori Party”. I’m trying to recall any precedent for such an extreme gagging of free speech by a political party…
Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, February 8th, 2011 - 45 comments
Every new party faces an inevitable conflict between the ‘realos’ and the ‘fundis’ over how much principle can be compromised to make some gains through coalitions. The Maori Party made it far worse by supporting a party that is anathema to everything it stands for. That big mistake is at the root of collapse we’re now witnessing.
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 pm, February 7th, 2011 - 3 comments
According to its Constitution ,the Maori Party Council makes decisions by consensus. I remember consensus decision-making from my days as a community activist in the 1970′s. Nay-sayers have a veto. If Te Tai Tokerau’s representatives don’t agree, the Council can’t decide and Hone doesn’t go. Hence the co-leaders’ move to suspend him.
Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, February 7th, 2011 - 61 comments
Hone has just been suspended from the Maori Party caucus. Pita and Tariana have had enough and they’re cutting him off in parliament – which surely can only be a prelude to him being cut off at party level as well.
Written By: - Date published: 5:45 pm, January 27th, 2011 - 20 comments
The Maori Party has budgeted $22,000 for legal advice regarding the complaint made against Hone Harawira for stating the obvious, and hired Mai Chen to boot, to coin a phrase. Chen has pointed to the decision in Peters v Collinge where Justice Fisher stated that disciplinary matters were political issues and all that was required …
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, January 27th, 2011 - 16 comments
Senior Maori Party staffers have been deserting the party in droves in recent months, including chief of staff Harry Walker, repulsed by the leadership selling out to National. It’s gotten so bad that they’ve had to out-source their spin doctoring to the Tories. You think I’m joking? I wish. This illuminates Hone Harawira’s fight with the leadership.
Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, January 22nd, 2011 - 29 comments
Fran O’Sullivan makes a good point in today’s Herald about the new political taboo of speaking out against leadership.
While we agree that it’s a Bad Thing, I doubt we agree about how it’s come about.
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, January 21st, 2011 - 15 comments
Why did Hone Harawira pick a fight if he wasn’t prepared to see it out? One News last night had him saying he wants to stay with the Maori Party. Patrick Gower reckons Hone’s assault on the leadership is all about building cred to take over next year but Hone’s saying he would support Te Ururoa Flavell for male co-leader. Curiouser and curiouser.
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