Green Party to contest by-election

The Green party has opened nominations for a candidate to contest the Ikaroa Rāwhiti by-election.

The party has only ever won one electorate. that was a general seat and the party didn’t manage to hold that.

The chances of its winning the by-election are slight.

The interest will be in whether it manages to mobilise voters and which party it takes votes from – Labour, the Maori Party or Mana.

 

Information not persuasion

This year Maori have the first chance since 2006 to choose whether they’re on the Maori or general electoral roll.

“If you are Maori and on the electoral roll, then this year you get to choose which type of electoral roll you want to vote on,” Enrolment Services national manager Murray Wicks said.

“There hasn’t been a Maori Electoral Option since 2006, so we want to make sure that Maori have access to all the information about the option and what it means before making their decision when the option period begins.

“It’s an important choice, and we want people to be confident to take part.”

The Electoral Commission is bound to present information on the options rather than persuade and says Maori organisation tasked with spreading the word should be strictly impartial.

Kiwiblog noted yesterday that one of those organisations is the Maori Council which is in the midst of legal proceedings against the government.

How impartial will it be?

Other groups, not employed by the Commission are free to persuade and they usually urge people to sign up for the Maori roll.

It would be good to see a campaign explaining the disadvantages of that and the benefits of being on the general roll.

As Tariana Turia said, Maori seats didn’t give Maori a voice:

I think what our people are starting to realise though is that when they voted Maori people into Labour they never got a Maori voice, they got a Labour voice and that was the difference, and they’ve only begun to realise it since the Maori Party came into parliament, because it is the first time that they have heard significant Maori issues raised on a daily basis.

Maori seats not only didn’t give Maori a voice, they gave and continue to give them inferior representation because most of them are too big to service effectively and provide constituents with ready access to their MPs.

Te Tai Tonga covers 161,443 square kilometres - the whole of the South Island, Stewart Island and part of Wellington. Te Tai Hauauru is 35, 825 square kilometres in area, Ikaroa-Rawhiti covers 30,952 square kilometres and Waiariki 19,212 square kilometres.

Maori seats were created when the right to vote depended on the ownership of land. That hasn’t applied for decades and there are now more Maori MPs in general seats and on the lists than representing Maori seats.

This gives them better representation than the Maori electorates which were taken for granted until National invited the Maori Party to be a support partner in government.

Single vehicle for diverse views won’t go forwards

Tariana Turia has announced this will be her last term in parliament and Te Ururoa Flavell wants to be co-leader of the Maori Party.

That would be simple if it were not for the party’s rule requiring male and female co-leaders.

Flavell can’t succeed Turia and so has to challenge Sharples who doesn’t want to go.

The requirement to have female and male co-leaders could cause more than enough difficulties for larger parties where the talent pool is larger.

What’s happening in the Maori Party shows why it’s even more of a handicap for the wee ones.

Complicating the issue is Hone Harawira’s suggestion that the Mana and Maori Parties should merge, with him as leader.

The leadership of the Maori Party was thrown into the spotlight yesterday morning when Mana Party leader Hone Harawira announced he was open to talks to reconnect with his former party as leader.

He claimed members of the Maori Party had approached him around the country keen for him to take over. . .

Sharples appeared to be open to the idea of Harawira returning, saying there was no point in having two Maori parties. . .

Harawira and Sharples must have forgotten why the former left the Maori Party a few short years ago.

His vision for Maori was very different from that of the party’s other MPs and theirs aren’t the only visions.

There are Maori involved with other political parties who have very different ideas.

A single vehicle for diverse and sometimes conflicting philosophies won’t take its  passengers forward, they’ll just keep going round in circles.

Co-leader conundrum

Sharing the leadership can only work for the wee parties because they know they’ll never be in a position for their leaders to be Prime Minister.

I’m not sure what difference having two co-leaders rather than a leader and deputy makes in practice but it can produce a conundrum when party rules dictate the need for gender balance.

It is especially problematic for wee parties who don’t have enough candidates, or possibly talent, in their ranks, to elevate a sitting MP to the position.

The Green Party faced this problem when Russel Norman became co-leader outside parliament when he wasn’t the next MP on the list.

The Maori Party now have a similar problem.

Tariana Turia has announced she’s not standing again in 2014 and will consider stepping down from the leadership before then.

She’s also asking her co-leader Pita Sharples to step down as leader in favour the party’s only other MP Te Ururoa Flavell.

There may well be good arguments for Sharples to step-down anyway.

But if the party didn’t require gender balance in the co-leadership succession could take place without the need for Sharples to step down.

Turia’s retirement will pose challenges for party

Tariana Turia’s announcement that she won’t stand in the 2014 election foreshadows the end of an ear for the Maori party.

It doesn’t mean the end of the party but it does pose some challenges for the organisation.

It will be difficult to find a co-leader with her mana.

It might be less difficult to find a candidate to replace her in the Te Tai Hauauru electorate but it won’t be as easy for a new candidate to hold the seat for the party.

Ms Turia began her parliamentary career in labour and resigned from the party on principle over the Foreshore and Seabed legislation. She resigned and stood in the subsequent by-election to prove she had a mandate.

Then Labour leader Helen Clark referred to the Maori party as the last cab off the rank for coalition negotiations.

John Key extended the offer a place in the National-led coalition after the 2008 election, even though he didn’t need the Maori Party’s votes for a majority.

But it gave him options and gave the party the opportunity it could achieve some of its goals in government rather than gaining headlines but making no progress in opposition.

As a small party it has had to compromise to gain some of what it wants, but it has stayed true to its principles and can point to some achievements, due in no small part to Ms Turia’s determination.

Her party will miss her.

If they can’t run a conference . .

Quote of the day:

“Let’s face it, the Labour Party can’t even run a conference, how on earth could they run the country?

“What they’re demonstrating is they just fundamentally do not like each other and it’s no great surprise that a lot of New Zealanders don’t like what they are doing,” he said. John Key.

The polls show a Labour/Green/New Zealand First/Maori Party/Mana coalition with a similar number of seats as National and its potential coalition partners.

But the public usually waits for a party to perform well in opposition before it’s trusted in government.

Labour has been overshadowed by the Green Party and NZ First in opposition. Now it’s disunity is on display, and will continue to be so at least until February, it’s shown it can’t even run itself.

“I always treat whoever the leader of the opposition is with respect … but the simple bottom line is if you go and have a party which is going to be internally consumed, which will be the case whoever wins, in the end it’s a really bad news story for Labour.

“The only winner out of this will be [Greens leader] Russel Norman.”

It certainly won’t be New Zealand which deserves politicians who put their energies into serving their constituents rather than mismanaging themselves.

SMOG or playing to gallery?

From any other politician this would be regarded as a SMOG - social media own goal:

Hone Harawira · 2,262 subscribers

8 hours ago ·

• Time John Key realised a few home truths like (1) he can tell his little house niggers what to do, but (2) the rest of us don’t give a shit for him or his opinions!

It’s certainly not language befitting an MP but he’s playing to his gallery.

I presume he’s referring to this:

That leaves the Maori Party. Co-leader Tariana Turia says  she doubts they will be attending.

“Well at this point I don’t really see the point in going,” she says.

Fellow co-leader Pita Sharples agrees.

“We believe this is a thing that iwi/hapu have to work out  themselves,” he says.

They are right.

Maori as a whole don’t have rights to water. If anyone has a case it’s individual iwi or hapu.

No single Maori view

The Maori and Mana parties both purport to represent Maori.

In as much as they are in parliament by dint of winning  Maori seats they do. But only about half of Maori opt to be included on  the Maori roll and these electorates usually have the smallest proportion of people who bother to vote.

This means at best they represent a small group of Maori.

That’s not surprising because there are many Maori voices and views, a point which John Moore, guest posting at Liberation makes:

. . . The left in New Zealand lost its way a long time ago, and now it is simply incapable of analysing Maori politics from a class perspective. So for example, leftists just can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that a section of Maoridom now has an inherent interest in the promotion of right-wing policies. A consequence of this non-class centred perspective is that corporate/pro-capitalist statements coming from the likes of the Maori party, the Iwi Leaders Group, and yes even the Maori Council, are all presented as anomalies or aberrations.

Why anomalies? Because the left generally sees all Maori as an oppressed group that is instinctively progressive, anti-corporate and anti-capitalist. But such a viewpoint is just plain wrong. Since the transfer of millions of dollars of assets to Maori tribal organisations over the last few decades, a Maori corporate class has emerged with its own distinct interests and politics. Yet the left prefers to see this Maori elite as ‘selling out’ (as opposed to the reality of them simply following their logical class interests). . . 

Rather than selling out, those iwi which have completed Treaty settlements and invested them wisely are taking their people from grievance to growth. They are standing on their own feet and prospering.

That might not please the left which fosters dependence in the hope of buying a constituency but it is better not just for Maori but the whole of New Zealand .

There is no single Maori voice because there is no single Maori view. Some, sadly are still looking behind, but others are looking ahead and keen to leave dependence in the past and use their skills and assets for development.

 

 

Why walk to opposition wilderness?

The Maori Party’s opponents were very keen for it to walk out on its coalition agreement with National.

But difficult as coalitions and the compromises it requires can be, the party knows where it can achieve most:

This week in the clearest statement she has made on why the Maori Party will not walk away from its coalition agreement with National, Turia (who many regard as the true leader of the Maori Party) said: “Why would we jeopardise the greatest opportunity Maori have ever had to benefit from political influence by abdicating our responsibilities and disappearing into the crowded wasteland of the opposition?”

In this single sentence she encapsulated what she thinks the Maori Party can achieve in alliance with National, but also her distaste for what she calls “the Labour House” where she says, when she was in it, she “had huge difficulty in learning by rote the key lines of the day.” She says the Maori Party contributions at Cabinet Committees have a free and frank flavour which leaves little room for doubt “if we have concerns.” She says “just as importantly we acknowledge the compromises made in our favour: the transformation across all sectors through Whanau Ora, and the increased priority given to addressing poverty and a range of social issues.”

Labour had the Maori seats sewn up for so many years it took them, and Maori, for granted.

National showed respect for the party after the 2008 election by inviting it into coalition when it didn’t need to.

Yesterday, the government completed the third reading of the Ngai Tāmanuhiri Claims Settlement Bill during which Tariana Turia struggled with tears .

Three other settlements were also finalised and several MPs made Facebook entries saying how moving the waiata from the gallery were.

What can the Maori Party do out of government?

The Maori Party’s many opponents are urging it to walk away from coalition with National over the issue of who owns water.

They would of course for two reasons: because they are also National’s opponents and hope the Maori Party defection would  weaken the government; and because they know it would weaken the Maori Party.

In government, the Maori Party can achieve something. What could it do out of government where it would be just another opposition party with Labour, the Green and Mana Parties and NZ First?

Playing to poor-me gallery

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples was playing to the poor-me gallery with his response to Prime Minister John Key’s first speech of the year last week:

Maori Party Co-leader Dr Pita Sharples is disappointed at the obvious omissions from the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation speech this afternoon.

“This was not a speech about the health of this nation – it was almost exclusively about the economy and budgetary matters,” said Dr Sharples.

“There was nothing said about the well-being of our nations peoples.

“I didn’t see the word poverty – even though the government has set up a Ministerial inquiry into poverty.

“The Treaty was not mentioned once – even though we have already begun to review the constitution of Aotearoa.

“And there was no reference to Maori in his speech – so our people must see that only the Maori Party in Parliament is able to bring their most important issues before the House of Representatives and the Government.

He must know that getting the economy and budgetary matters right is the only way to pay for education, health and other services and boost employment and that those are the only way to alleviate poverty.

He also ought to know that when the Prime Minister talks about New Zealanders he means all of us and that it is not necessary to single out any particular group.

This speech, like yesterday’s threat to walk away from the Maori Party’s coalition agreement with the government, was chest-beating for a constituency.

He and his co-leader Tariana Turia can’t possibly have forgotten the message they gave voters during the election campaign — that you can’t achieve anything in opposition.

But they are on dangerous ground because their grandstanding will not appeal to all Maori.

Iwi with money to invest are keen to take up the opportunities provided by the partial sale off state assets.

In playing to the poor-me gallery Sharples and Turia are foolishly overlooking the other gallery full of people keen to stand on their own feet.

Nats, Maori Party have relationship Accord and C&S agreement

The National and Maori Parties have reached a Relationship Accord and Confidence and Supply Agreement.

This agreement differs from those signed with the United Future and ACT parties in that while the Maori Party will support the National-led Government on confidence and supply, it is not required to vote for legislation required to give effect to the policies in National’s Post-Election Action Plan.

“This is a policy-based agreement and features a number of areas where both parties agree to work together,” says Mr Key.

“On everything else besides confidence and supply, the Maori Party will decide support or not on a case-by-case basis.”

This gives the government three extra votes on confidence and supply measures and allows the Maori Party more freedom to support or oppose other government policies as it chooses.

In return co-leaders get ministerial appointments outside cabinet:

Maori Party Co-Leader Dr Pita Sharples will be appointed to the positions of Minister of Maori Affairs, Associate Minister of Education and Associate Minister of Corrections.  These Ministerial positions will be outside Cabinet.

Maori Party Co-Leader Tariana Turia will be appointed to the positions of Minister responsible for Whānau Ora, Minister for Disability Issues, Associate Minister of Health, and Associate Minister of Housing.  She will also continue to have Associate Ministerial responsibilities in the areas of Social Development and Employment.  These Ministerial positions will be outside Cabinet.

National invited the Maori Party into government three years ago when he didn’t need their votes to govern. That gave the party the mana which had been denied it by Labour which left it in opposition. It also allowed the party to get some concessions - among which was the agreement by National to not abolish the Maori seats – and policy gains.

The coalition agreements with Act and United Future means National doesn’t need the Maori Party to govern this term either. But again John Key has opened the door and the party has sensibly decided to come in and make some policy gains rather than languishing in opposition where it would achieve little or nothing.

The agreement is here.

Not if but how for Maori Party

The choice for the Maori Party isn’t if they will reach an agreement with National but how.

In or attached to the government the party will be able to get real policy gains.

The alternative of three years in the wilderness of opposition in competition with Labour, the Green part, NZ First and Mana will do nothing for the party or its supporters.

It could also mean the end of the Maori seats.

National campaigned in 2008 on getting rid of the seats but dropped that policy as a concession to the Maori Party during coalition negotiations.

Act still wants the seats dropped. If the Maori Party chooses opposition rather than supporting the government in some fashion, National will be under no obligation to keep them.

Is he jumping or being pushed?

TVNZ says Pita Sharples will happily stand down as co-leader so new blood can come in.

TV3 has a different slant:

. . . it seems the Maori Party do not want Dr Sharples as co-leader any more and  his position will come up for grabs.

The male co-leadership will be contested by Te Ururoa Flavell – the only  other male MP in the Maori Party.

Sharples said before the election that this would be his last term and it makes sense to hand the co-leadership over in plenty of time for his successor to make his mark.

But being happy to stand down is not the same as not being wanted, so is he jumping or being pushed?

UPDATE: The Dom Post says internal struggles are plaguing the Maori Party but offers nothing in the story to back that up.

Could it be the media trying to find conflict where none exists?

 

Reality biting

2008: National 45% + Act 3.65% + United Future .87% + Maori Party 2.39% = 51.91%

Labour 34% + Green Party 7% + NZ First 4.07% + Progressive .91% = 45.98%

2011: National: 48% + Act 1.07% + United Future .61% + Maori Party 1.35% = 51.03%

Conservative Party  2.76%

Labour 27% + Green Party 11% + NZ First 7% + Mana 1% =  46%

Peters plays Humpty Dumpty again

Winston Peters has said:

“New Zealand First is not going with National. New Zealand First is not going with Labour either. We are making that clear here today.

NZ First would not countenance a deal that involved the Greens or the Maori Party.

“So all those people lumping us in with groups and making us part of some fictitious coalition should stop right now.”

It appears that means he’s ruling out joining a government in the next term and his party would stay in opposition if it had any MPs in parliament.

But we know from the many times his actions have contradicted past utterances, he’s a graduate of the Humpty Dumpty school of meaning and what he says means what he chooses it to mean, neither more nor less.

It’s not just that what anything he says appears to mean is not necessarily what he means now, it could also mean something quite different in the future should a new meaning be more convenient than the old.

Grievance and gimme or whanau helping whanau

Tariana Turia talks sense:

Hone Harawira’s rhetoric that political parties should ‘feed the kids’ must be challenged says Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia.

“Gone are the days when we allow the State to take over the role of families; to encourage whanau to abdicate their responsibilities” said Mrs Turia.

“Our greatest opportunity through Whanau Ora has been that our whanau are able to inspire the nation and act as a beacon of hope for our own solutions” said Mrs Turia.

“The last thing we need is for another politician to come in to save our families by handing out free breakfast and free lunch to their kids”.

“It’s patronizing, it’s demeaning and it devalues the vital capacity of our whanau to take responsibility for their own children’.

“Hone has picked a number out of the air  ($38m) but the costings are at least ten times that” said Mrs Turia “and that’s not for all children either”.

“If we provided free breakfast and lunch to the children the Child Poverty Action Group has classified as living in poverty (230,000) that brings a cost of $368m per year – that’s right  – a billion dollars for the next term of Parliament to authorise politicians to take over the rights and responsibilities of families”.

“We must resist any attempts by politicians to paint our families as incapable of doing for themselves.   We should be working to inspire hope; to remind our whanau of their capability to feed their children, provide a healthy lifestyle, a warm and secure home”.

“Government’s job is to ensure that there is support for families to look after their own; that there is meaningful work available; and a minimum wage of at least $16 an hour”.

“And we must restore to ourselves our time-honoured traditions.  The Maori Party has invested in the recreation of maara kai so that our whanau can fend for themselves, determine their own futures”.

“Our whanau are our future – not a politician handing out a free lunch”.

This is really encouraging and offers voters in the Maori electorate real choice – the grievance and gimme of Harawiara and the Mana Party or whanau helping whanau of the Maori Party.

One encourages dependency the other encourages responsibility.

Turia not committing to full term

Maori Party c0-leaders Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples are numbers seven and eight  on their party’s list.

That is a deliberate move in preparation for their retirements.

Number one is Waihoroi Shortland who is standing in Te Tai Tokerau and his place indicates that he is the likely successor to the co-leaders.

Giving an indication of future plans is sensible. Sharples says he will stay on until the 2014 election but Turia has indicated she probably won’t complete the term:

Tariana Turia says she will step down sometime during the next term of government, while Pita Sharples says he will see out the term but will not stand in 2014.

She was going to stand down before this term and given her age and family commitments that would have been understandable.

She is clear this will be her last election and she might be meaning to retire close enough to the next election to not trigger a by-election.

If however, she intends to retire earlier she will be putting the taxpayers to the unnecessary expense of a by-election.

Retiring early because of something unforeseen is understandable. Standing when you don’t intend to complete the term is not so much of a problem with a list MP because the next person on the list succeeds them without having to go back to voters.

But standing in a seat when you have no intention of completing the three year commitment you ought to be giving voters is a mistake, and given the cost of a by-election, an expensive one.

Party President Pem Bird’s announcement of the list is here.

Goff entertains deal with Peters

Labour isn’t ruling out doing a deal with Winston Peters.

Have they forgotten or are they prepared to overlook how bad he’s been every time he’s been in government and how he can’t be trusted?

Or does Phil Goff lack the principles to say he’d rather stay out of government than be in it with Peters as John Key did?

Let’s hope voters can be trusted more than labour. Lindsay’s comment in the previous post shows, the prospect of a Labour, Green, Maori, Mana and New Zealand First coalition should help National and its potential coalition partners.

Could National be a victim of its own success?

It was rare for a party to get more than 50% of the vote under MMP FPP, it’s never happened under MMP.

While National has been polling above 50% it is not expected to get an absolute majority. It will need coalition partners, but will they get enough to from a government?

Act’s chances of gaining more than 5% of the vote are even more unlikely than National’s of getting more than 10 times that so hinge on John Banks winning Epsom.

That’s by no means certain. Even if he does he’s unlikely to bring in as many MPs as Act has in parliament now.

The Maori Party already has one less MP than it started with after the last election thanks to Hone Harawira’s defection and vote splitting between the Maori and Mana Parties could allow Labour to come through the middle in at least one of the Maori Party’s seat.

Peter Dunne will probably hold his electorate but is very unlikely to bring in another MP.

If potential coalition partners do worse, National will have to do better than 2008′s 46% to have a chance of leading the next government. If it doesn’t, Trans Tasman says:

. . .  in the scenario where National’s coalition partners fall by the wayside, and Labour’s numbers are bolstered by the Greens, NZ First and the Mana Party, the country could be left in limbo while one or other of the main parties seek to build a viable coalition.

It would be ironic if National was a victim of its own success, taking votes from Act and other potential coalition partners, but leaving it with too few MPs in support parties and of its own to govern.

Yet another reason to vote for change in the referendum on our electoral system.