Hone Te Nākahi

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, March 6th, 2008 - 14 comments
Categories: maori party, national - Tags: , , ,

The Maori Party has reacted angrily to Key’s unilateral decision that National would abolish the Maori seats some time around 2014. Newsroom reports (not online):

‘The Maori Party is threatening protest and strike action on a scale never seen before in New Zealand if any political party moves to abolish the Maori seats without consultation and approval of Maori’

Here’s what Hone Harawira had to say about Key a few months back:

Key seems to think that all he needs to do to win the middle-class vote is talk vaguely about tax cuts and the wage gap, that all he needs to do to win the female vote is smile and keep his privisation plan for schools and health quiet, and that all he needs to do to win the Maori vote is have a hongi with Tame Iti. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, eventually the mask slips.

snakeapple.jpgHarawira is right to call Key a snake: he is beguiling and he promises that what he offers is harmless, but in reality his is a slippery character and Maori should know better than to take a bite of that apple.

14 comments on “Hone Te Nākahi ”

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  1. Sam Dixon 1
    6 March 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Funny, usually when someone makes a comment about the Maori Party not working with National Byrce Edwards is on in flash telling us how everyone hates the Left and National, the Maori Party, and the Greens will govern together in harmony forever.

  2. chris 2
    6 March 2008 at 2:19 pm

    Some months back Hone Harawira said the same thing to JT and Willie during their afternoon show on Radio Live.

  3. Camryn 3
    6 March 2008 at 2:48 pm

    Still, the Maori seats should be abolished in an MMP context. They were important under FPP, but aren’t the best solution under MMP. Perhaps they could be traded for an exclusion from the 5% minimum for the Maori party? I think Germany does that for some of its ethnic minorities.

    Of course, the Maori Party would never wish to give them up or trade them for anything fairer and closer to the original intention so will paint National as bastards for trying to make a change. A shame that National are completely unable to articulate their actual good reasons and come across horribly.

  4. Steve Pierson 4
    6 March 2008 at 3:59 pm

    I think that ideally you would have no threshold and only one tier of electorate seats. And the Maori Party in seems to accept the possiblity of gettign rid of them, its National setting a date without consultation that has them pissed.

  5. out of bed 5
    6 March 2008 at 4:00 pm

    ‘Rhetoric Risky’ says Harawira
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0803/S00107.htm

  6. out of bed 6
    6 March 2008 at 4:02 pm

    We won’t be doing deals with parties who plan to silence our peoples’ views” he said.

  7. out of bed 7
    6 March 2008 at 4:03 pm

    So just ACT an UF then?

  8. roger nome 8
    6 March 2008 at 5:09 pm

    “Funny, usually when someone makes a comment about the Maori Party not working with National Byrce Edwards is on in flash telling ”

    Yeah I know – I can’t figure out for the life of me where he gets these ideas, or what agenda he’s trying to push. The guy’s ex-alliance after all – what reason could he possibly have for promoting the idea of pie in the sky National-Maori party coalition (in favor of a coalition/post-election deal with labour)? The mind boggles.

  9. out of bed 9
    6 March 2008 at 7:45 pm

    So with out the MP at a coaltion partner, and lets face it they have just been ruled out
    The Nats have to poll over 47% to stand a chance

    That is not likely

    The most likely scenario is Winston claims the 5 or 6 % that that has gone to the NATs
    and dear old Winnie becomes King maker again

  10. the sprout 10
    6 March 2008 at 7:52 pm

    the more things stay the same the more they stay the same

  11. gobsmacked 11
    6 March 2008 at 8:39 pm

    Key has shown extraordinary incompetence here.

    The policy was announced a year ago. National gave a nod to the Orewa crowd (i.e. abolishing the Maori seats) while pushing the date back so far as to make the pledge meaningless. There will be at least three elections before 2014, and who knows what will have happened by then (Sharples and Turia retired? Key and English dumped? World War Three?).

    A year ago this was not an issue. So why has it become one? Because Key couldn’t give a straight answer, and then changed the one he gave. So he propelled the Maori seats into the headlines, and antagonised the Maori Party, while achieving nothing.

    The Maori Party may not be the last cab off the rank, but they’ll still run over a fool standing in the middle of the road, dithering.

  12. the sprout 12
    6 March 2008 at 10:21 pm

    you’re right gs – Key’s made the supreme political error of being newsworthy not because of what he is saying, but because of how badly he said it.

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