Written By: - Date published: 3:37 pm, May 23rd, 2013 - 22 comments
Labour will hold three selection meetings in the very large electorate, in Seaview, in Tolaga Bay, and the final one in Napier on Sunday. Labour has a very strong slate of six high-calibre candidates. New members are flocking to the party, and with over 500 electorate members having a say this time the meetings will be full on as well as full. All Party members can attend; anyone can register to get the result.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, May 16th, 2013 - 22 comments
Hone Harawira challenged the Maori Party for its support of charter schools, at the expense of Maori and public education. He challenged Sharples to resign if today’s budget fails to adequately support kura kaupapa and the Manaaki Tauira programme.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, January 24th, 2013 - 69 comments
What a mess. Katene wants Turia’s job but will she be the one given the tap or will it be a member of the Turia clan? Flavell has made a play for Sharples’ job, but there’s no mechanism for deciding leadership battles. Harawira has offered a re-merger. Sharples is open to it, Turia isn’t but she wants Sharples gone.
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 24th, 2013 - 10 comments
Pita Sharples should step down as a leader of the Maori Party and let someone else have a go. A merger with Mana seems to offer the most viable way forward, but the possibility has prompted a hysterical reaction from the outgoing Turia.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, December 15th, 2012 - 75 comments
Mana has established a clear identity, as shown in Hone’s adjournment speech. Based in practice and activism. For all people, especially those on low incomes. A voice for Maori, Pasifika people and children. The Maori Party’s future is in question. What’s the future for Mana and Hone?
Written By: - Date published: 7:36 am, December 14th, 2012 - 34 comments
Tariana Turia’s on-again off-again retirement is on-again. She will not be standing in 2014, and is looking to her “legacy”. Unfortunately, Whanau Ora is profoundly flawed. But if Turia wants a legacy to be proud of she still has time…
Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, December 12th, 2012 - 14 comments
The Maori Party has publicly called on National to act on the child poverty report. Was this a token protest for form’s sake, or will the Maori Party actually make a stand for kids?
Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, October 28th, 2012 - 22 comments
In my opinion the MP signed their own death warrant when they allowed the split with Mana to happen. Coverage arising from their Conference paints a picture of a party in terminal decline.
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, October 25th, 2012 - 9 comments
The Maori Party has pulled its support for the latest weakening of the ETS. As usual Peter Dunne will be personally responsible for propping up the worst of the Nats’ agenda.
Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, September 6th, 2012 - 115 comments
It’s easy to see why Key has forbidden National MPs from attending the national water rights hui – he’s playing divide and rule with Maori. More difficult to understand is the Maori Party’s craven decision to stay away. Hone Harawira condemns them in the strongest possible language.
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, August 27th, 2012 - 130 comments
The Maori Party is meeting with National to discuss the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on water and asset sales today. Notice how no-one’s saying ‘will they walk if the Nats ignore the Tribunal and proceed to breach the Treaty?’ That’s what happens when you cry wolf then sell out time after time. Everyone knows Turia wants her comfy limo seat more than anything else.
Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, August 15th, 2012 - 18 comments
Frank Macskasy over at Frankly Speaking writes some very long posts that are often full of interesting information. This one does a good analysis of the recommendations from the Electoral Commission and various party positions on it. On the way through he has a good swipe at John Banks, who it would be safe to say, he considers to be political cabbage.
Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, July 23rd, 2012 - 7 comments
Key has been giving different messages on the water rights issue to the Maori Party and to the wider public. No one knows what, if anything, his “promises” mean. Why isn’t the Maori Party (which has been burned before) seeking urgent clarification?
Written By: - Date published: 6:11 pm, July 19th, 2012 - 49 comments
Key is already qualifying a promise he’s made on Maori water rights. Does the promise mean anything at all?
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, July 19th, 2012 - 41 comments
The meeting between Key and the Maori Party leaders last night reached it’s predictable conclusion. From his point of view Key has played this brilliantly.
Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, July 17th, 2012 - 21 comments
There’s some interesting speculation that the Government could collapse within months. The theory goes that the Government could lose its majority due to 1) the Maori Party walking away over the water rights issue and 2) John Banks being forced to resign over illegally anonymised donations in the 2010 Auckland mayoral election. I don’t see it happening, yet.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, July 17th, 2012 - 62 comments
Even John Key is now admitting that the asset sale program is facing a serious legal challenge, and that delays in the sales are likely. Any such delay would have several implications…
Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, July 11th, 2012 - 145 comments
Just 32 hours after Key started running the line that the Government would ignore the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision on the Maori Council water rights claim if it didn’t go his way, the Maori Party reacted. Key is abusing the privilege of his office by trying to pre-empt a judicial body’s decision says Pita Sharples. Tariana Turia says they will talk about their ‘future’ with National.
Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, July 3rd, 2012 - 15 comments
The only remaining possible legal threat to the Nats’ plans to sell off our power companies is a Treaty based claim to water rights or riverbeds.
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, June 28th, 2012 - 23 comments
It’s not acceptable for the government to keep funding a service provider after fraud has been clearly reported. It’s not acceptable for a Minister to be aware of “problems” and not even read the audit report before allocating further funding. Will anyone be held to account?
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, June 11th, 2012 - 11 comments
Sharples and Turia remind me of an old couple running the family store with no kids to pass it on to. They want to retire. If they do, that’ll be curtains for everything they’ve built. Without them, the Maori Party goes to a deserving death. Plus Key will be pressuring them to stay. They’re his only ghost of a chance. How much longer can they keep going? They’ll be 72 and 70 in 2014.
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 - 128 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…
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