Can’t run party, can’t run country

The release of a party list ought to be a well managed positive PR opportunity.

Labour’s was not.

The seeds of trouble were planted months ago with rumbling’s over leader Andrew Little’s promise of a winnable list position for Willie Jackson.

Another trouble sprouted a few days ago when sitting list MP Sue Maroney announced she would stand down at the election because she wouldn’t have a winnable list position.

This confirms my contention that Labour’s anti-employer sentiments are based on its own mishandling of its people.

On the heels of Maroney’s announcement, the release of the list was delayed because Jackson had a tantrum.

This raises more questions about Little’s judgement and leadership.

Ironically Jackson’s chances of winning will increase if Labour’s sitting MPs in Maori Electorates, who chose not to be on the list, lose their seats to the Maori or Mana Parties.

 Barry Soper sums it up:

 . . .The first public fallout from the current Labour list preparation was the paid parental leave campaigner, 12 year veteran MP Sue Moroney who was a Cunliffe supporter, who said she’d lost the support of the party’s ruling council who’d given her an unelectable position so she’s quitting.

One would have thought before Labour made public when it’d be announcing its list, it would have ironed out those who could have been disgruntled with it. Yet again they’re spilling their guts in public, being forced to delay their announcement until this morning to give them time to either placate Jackson or to send him up the political creek without his waka. . .

The list release debacle reflects poorly on Little and shows Labour still can’t run itself.

If it can’t be trusted to do that it can’t be trusted to run the county.

Hone hasn’t learned

Those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them:

The Mana Movement is planning for the 2017 election and Kim Dotcom could be involved, leader Hone Harawira says.

Mr Harawira lost his Te Tai Tokerau seat to Labour’s Kelvin Davis and Mana’s alliance with the Dotcom backed Internet Party only gained 1.26 percent of the party vote in September’s election. . .

The election result gave me faith in democracy and one of the best illustrations of that was voters in Te Tai Tokerau who voted Davis in as their MP.

By doing so they saved us all from the electoral rort that Harawira, Dot Com, Laila Harre and their fellow travellers tried to inflict on us with their unholy and hypocritical alliance under the Internet Mana Party banner.

Harawira’s willingness to work with Dotcom again shows he doesn’t understand that.

He will find it much harder to campaign without the salary and allowances he had as an MP and party leader in parliament.

He’ll be further handicapping himself if he enlists Dotcom’s help again.

Political Compass

Political Compass places New Zealand political parties:

 

Whoever is behind it says:

This time around there can be no more important and over-arching issue than the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which New Zealand is poised to sign, yet receives scant attention in the campaign and is ignored in any of the “surveys” that we’ve seen. From the authenticated leaked information that’s available, it’s clear that this agreement is much more than the free trade deal that its National Party adherents describe. It is in fact an unprecedented move towards international corporate involvement in governance, including vital areas like education, health and pharmaceuticals, environment, agriculture, investor rights and much more. Under the TPPA, government legislation in the interests of the public — but against the interests of foreign business — may be challenged by a corporation in a closed tribunal on the grounds of impeding free trade. This precise thing has already happened in Australia, where the country’s plain packaging laws on tobacco were legally challenged by a tobacco company. The truth is that many of the electoral policies of some NZ parties could not be implemented under the TPPA! This, and not the flag, is the real sovereignty issue, and it\`s barely being raised. By comparison, every other electoral issue is window dressing.

I don’t think most voters share this view of the importance of the TPPA, nor what appears to be a hard-left, anti-trade view of it.

However they are right about this:

We remain perplexed about the electoral alliance between Mana and the Internet Party, given that Mana’s leader is an avowed socialist, while the Internet Party’s founder is an economic libertarian in the mould of the anti-state Pirate parties of other countries. . .

I took the test:

 

 

That isolates me from any of the parties but I think that’s the fault of the placing of the parties, the questions – some of which are on issues and ideas which aren’t relevant here – and assumptions made about how answers relate to the parties.

TVNZ’s Vote Compass shouldn’t be taken as fool-proof, but it has the parties better placed and is based on questions more relevant in New Zealand.

It put me in a similar place but has the National Party there as more centrists and liberal than the Political Compass does:

Cunliffe yeah-nah on Mana

Last week David Cunliffe refused to rule out working with Internet Mana.

Last night TV3 reported the Labour Party had told Te Tai Tokerau candidate Kelvin Davis to shut down a website aimed at his rival for the seat, sitting MP and Mana leader Hone Harawira.

But this morning Cunliffe told TV1’s Breakfast: (@ 2:28)

“. . . We’ve ruled out working with Mana in government  as well. I’ve said yesterday, I’ve said before Mana will not be part of a government I lead fullstop.”

Has he or has he not ruled out Mana?

If he has why is Davis being told to pull his head in – and his website off-line – and why isn’t Labour supporting its candidate in Te Tai Tokerau?

A strong campaign there would unseat Harawira and Mana would go with him in spite of the millions of dollars Kim Dotcom is throwing at it.

While Labour is yeah-nahing about whether or not it will work with Mana and whether or not it wants to win the seat, Davis is in no doubt.

He posted on Facebook last night:

I was on 3 News tonight because my campaign team had a look at a proposed website designed to take down Kim Dotcom and stop him from buying the seat of Te Tai Tokerau with his $3million dollars.
We explored this concept, debated it, then along with the Labour Party hierarchy decided it wasn’t in line with our Vote Positive messages and ditched it.
It was all about Kim Dotcom.
This is the same Kim Dotcom who donated $50,000 to far-right wing disgraced politician John Banks.
This is the same Kim Dotcom who said the police turning up at his front door was as bad as the suffering Maori have endured for close to two centuries.
This is the same Kim Dotcom had nothing to do with Maori until he found a way to take advantage of some to try to keep himself out of an American jail.
This is the same Kim Dotcom who’s garage is bigger and flasher than 99% of homes in Te Tai Tokerau, and still cries ‘poor me’.
This is the same Kim Dotcom, who if he really cared about the people of Te Tai Tokerau, would have got out with all the Labour volunteers after the floods and storms and distributed food packages to those who needed them instead of staying tucked up in the mansion.
This is the same Kim Dotcom who turned up to hui up north in a limousine while kaumatua and kuia rode in a rattly bus.
This is the same Kim Dotcom whose interference in Te Tai Tokerau politics was described as a disgrace to over 300 people at the Ngati Hine hearings in Pipiwai yesterday.
I make no apologies about looking at a website that asked the public to donate $5, $10 or whatever they wish to koha, to bring down a fake.
I’m just an ordinary Maori living up north trying to stop the biggest con in New Zealand’s political history from being pulled against my whanau, my hapu, my iwi.
I make no apologies if there’s another Maori politician in the north feeling pretty sensitive about all the criticism he’s copping from hapu throughout Te Tai Tokerau because of the con job.
I’m prepared to cop the criticism from him because it’s just the price a person pays when he stands up for his people and his principles.

Davis is quite sure he wants to win the seat, and on current polling he’d have to if he wants a seat in parliament because his list placing isn’t good enough win a seat that way.

But it’s difficult to know whether his leader and his party are as keen.

The only thing we can be sure about  is that Labour is unsure.

It’s as confused and divided about this as it is about its campaign, its direction and its leader.

Another candidate from political crypt

The Mana Party is following its stable-mate the Internet Party in dragging out candidates from the political crypt:

The world’s first openly transsexual MP Georgina Beyer is standing for the Mana Party in the Te Tai Tonga electorate.

Ms Beyer will stand in the Maori seat, which covers the entire South Island, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands, Wellington and parts of the Hutt Valley.

She has links to the electorate through her Te Ati Awa and Ngati Mutunga whakapapa, Mana Party Leader Hone Harawira said today.

“Our goal this election is to raise the profile of Mana, grow our numbers in Parliament, and help change the Government,” he said.

“Georgina’s a respected household name in politics so she’s an important part of helping achieve that goal. We feel honoured to have her.” . . .

Respected? By whom?

Certainly not the Fortune Theatre:

Transsexual former MP Georgina Beyer has quit the Fortune Theatre production 6 Dance Lessons in 6 Weeks two days before it was due to open in Dunedin.It is the first time a production has been cancelled at the Fortune Theatre.Ms Beyer said yesterday she had made the decision to leave the play after realising “I bit off more than I could chew”.

The play was scheduled to open tonight and run until March 7.

“It’s a massive disappointment. I feel terribly disappointed for the Fortune Theatre and for the Dunedin public. But, in my view, it would have been irresponsible to put it on,” she said.

Ms Beyer gave her decision to the theatre management after rehearsals on Wednesday afternoon.

“I just felt that I couldn’t put my co-star Douglas Kamo in danger and put on a production that could be slammed by the critics,” she said.

“It was a massive role. I wasn’t going too badly at the start, but I just couldn’t anchor the script in my head. I kept blowing my lines.” . . .

That cancellation cost the Fortune Theatre Trust thousands of dollars.

If memory serves me correctly, although she announced her resignation before parliament broke for the summer holidays, it didn’t take effect until the new year so she was rehearsing for the play at the taxpayers’ expense.

She then ran out of money and complained about not getting any government appointments:

Former Labour MP Georgina Beyer plans to move to Australia because she cannot find work.

The three-term Wairarapa MP, the world’s first transsexual politician, said she was disillusioned with life after politics and upset at the treatment she had received from her former Labour Party colleagues.

Ms Beyer said that while other former Labour MPs were appointed to boards, she had received nothing and was turned down for a position on the Human Rights Commission.

The former chairwoman of Parliament’s social services committee said she had been forced to accept the unemployment benefit for several months late last year before selling her house to pay the bills “so I didn’t have to be on the dole”.

“I have all this accumulated knowledge and experience and no one wants to employ it, and I’m not sure why,” she said.

“That I’m of no further use to my country is why I’m considering Australia, that my former parliamentary colleagues seem not to want to appoint me to anything, but are quite happy to accommodate others who have left or are about to, so as to shut them up from whingeing from the sidelines in election year.

“One could be forgiven for being a little vexed.” . . .

Lots of taxpayers could well be vexed too but by her attitude rather than the lack of appointments.

In her valedictory speech in February last year, Ms Beyer described her political career as the “greatest moment of my life”.

But she said she now felt disillusioned by it.

“Politics was never my ambition. I was coaxed into it by others,” she said. . . .

“It seems that I am not valued for my experience in either local or central government, so I guess I wasted 14 years of my life in publicly elected service and ended up unemployable.”

And now Mana and Kim Dotcom have found a job for her.

Let’s hope the good folk of Te Tai Tonga, the largest electorate of all, ensure it’s temporary.

Paying price for prevarication

Last night’s 3 News-Reid Research poll gave Labour more bad news:

PARTY VOTE:

National: 49.4 percent (down 0.3 percent)
Labour: 26.7 percent (down 0.6 percent)
Green: 12.4 percent (down 0.3 percent)
NZ First: 4.3 percent  (up 0.7 percent)
Conservative: 2.7 percent (down 0.1 percent)
Internet Mana: 2.3 percent (up 0.5 percent)
Maori: 1.1 percent (down 0.4 percent)
United Future: 0.2 percent (up 0.2 percent)
ACT: 0.1 percent (down 0.3 percent)

The reason’s for Labour’s poor showing are many, but one of those is Cunliffe’s prevarication over whether or not he’d do a post-election deal with the Internet-mana Party:

SHOULD LABOUR WORK WITH INTERNET MANA IN FORMING A GOVERNMENT:

NO: 59 percent
YES: 29 percent
Don’t know: 12 percent
–
Labour voters:
NO: 47 percent
YES: 40 percent
Don’t know: 13 percent

Cunliffe’s following the Winston Peters’ line on this – he’ll play the cards the voters deal.

But by doing this both men are leaving voters without information they need to cast their votes with confidence.

John Key told everyone months ago which parties he would and would not work with.

People know  what they’d get if they give National their party votes.

In contrast, Cunliffe and Peters continue to prevaricate which leaves voters having to take a gamble.

If they give Labour their party votes they can’t be sure they wouldn’t be helping the Internet-Mana Party into government and if they vote for New Zealand First they have no idea if Peters would move right or left.

In spite of what he says about the possibility of staying on the cross-benches, the lure of some baubles would almost certainly persuade him to change his mind.

A vote for either Labour or New Zealand first is a vote for uncertainty and instability.

Clear choice

The choice in this election is stark.

There’s a centre right government led by a strong and popular National Party with John Key, the most popular Prime Minister in many, many years, with several capable new MPs.

It will almost certainly need support parties but their influence will be as minor as they are.

Then there’s the alternative – an unstable left government led by a weak Labour Party with the unpopular David Cunliffe heading stale faces supported by the Green, New Zealand First, Mana and Internet parties who will exert far more influence than their minor status.

That’s a choice between stability and progress from a National-led government or instability and regression from this:

 

 

That looks like two white businessmen which is a strange image for a coalition that includes a radical Maori separatist and several feminists.

Whatever the gender and race of the people behind the hands, I hope we see more of this because this clearly shows the prospect of government by what Bob Jones so accurately described as a rabble of dissimilar, mutually antagonistic parties, all with unpopular leaders and wildly different messages. . . 

If a picture is worth a thousand words – every one in this is telling the undecided in the middle to vote for National.

It’s only one poll

The latest Roy Morgan poll continues the positive trend for National:

. . . Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows a strong gain in support for National (52.5%, up 7%) now at their highest since before the last New Zealand Election and well ahead of a potential Labour/Greens alliance (38%, down 6%) – almost matching their performance at the 2011 New Zealand Election at which the two parties polled a combined 38.5%.

Support for Key’s Coalition partners has also improved with the Maori Party 1.5% (up 0.5%), ACT NZ (1%, up 0.5%) and United Future 0% (unchanged).

Support has fallen significantly for all Opposition parties with the Labour Party down 1.5% to 29%, the Greens down 4.5% to 9% (the lowest support for the Greens since September 2011), New Zealand First 4.5% (down 1.5%) and Mana Party 0.5% (down 0.5%). Support for the Conservative Party of NZ is 1% (unchanged) and the Internet Party is 0.5% (unchanged).

If a National Election were held now the latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows that the result would be a landslide victory for the National Party and a third term for Prime Minister John Key. . .

But wait, there’s more good news:

The latest NZ Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating has also improved considerably – up 8.5pts to 140.5pts with 64.5% (up 4.5%) of New Zealanders saying New Zealand is ‘heading in the right direction’ compared to 24% (down 4%) that say New Zealand is ‘heading in the wrong direction’.

Gary Morgan says:

“Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows a strong positive response to the predicted Budget Surplus of $372 million handed down by Finance Minister Bill English with National surging to 52.5% (up 7%) – it’s highest since the last New Zealand Election. National has surged to a huge lead over a potential Labour/ Greens alliance (38%, down 6%).

“The closer the election, it appears the less support there is for the main opposition parties with support for Labour (29%, down 1.5%) now stuck below the level that prompted the resignation of previous leader David Shearer for most of 2014. The initial surge provided by David Cunliffe has well and truly worn off. In addition the Greens (9%, down 4.5%) have slumped to their lowest level of support since before the last New Zealand election after announcing last weekend a proposal to introduce a Carbon Tax in New Zealand in place of the current Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Last week’s merger announcement of the Internet Party (0.5%) and Mana Party (0.5%) to contest this year’s election offers both parties a better chance of attaining the 5% threshold required to elect a slate of Party List MPs. However, the combined support for the two parties has never exceeded 2%, and it would appear unlikely the merged party can bridge this gap in the next few months.” . . .

Polls can be too good, of course.

This level of support for National could make supporters complacent.

Some might think they can afford to vote for another party, others might not bother to vote at all.

However, while it continues the positive trend for National of other recent polls, it is only one poll and the one which is usually regarded as the least reliable.

But is it?

Thomas Lumley at Stats Chat, says it’s not:

. . . In fact, there’s not much difference between the major polling companies in the variability of their estimates. . .

There really is not much to see here. So why do people feel that Roy Morgan comes out with strange results more often? Probably because Roy Morgan comes out with results more often.

For example, the proportion of poll-to-poll changes over 3 percentage points is 0.22 for One News/Colmar Brunton, 0.18 for Roy Morgan, and 0.23 for 3 News/Reid Research, all about the same, but the number of changes over 3 percentage points in this time frame is 5 for One News/Colmar Brunton, 14 for Roy Morgan, and 5 for 3 News/Reid Research. . .

What that shows is voter preference is volatile and that more frequent polls reflect that volatility.

That’s why it doesn’t pay to get too excited about a single poll, or even several with the same trend.

The volatility of support merely reinforces the oft repeated phrase, there’s only one poll that counts.

 

 

Bradford quits on principle

Sue Bradford has resigned from the Mana Party in protest against its alliance with the Internet Party.

She sent a letter of resignation to the leadership late this morning, effective immediately, saying she had lost enthusiasm for Mana and “sucking up to a German millionaire” was not her vision for the party.
“My overwhelming emotion today is sadness,” she told 3 News.
“Kim Dotcom is a gamer and it’s a big game that he’s playing, and I don’t want to become his pawn.”
Ms Bradford’s resignation means this will be the first general election in 15 years the former Green Party MP won’t be standing as a candidate. But she admits the alliance, known as Internet Mana, may be more attractive to others with political ambitions. . .

Those political ambitions will be untroubled by the principles Bradford has demonstrated in resigning.

Oddest political coupling

The oddest political coupling is likely to become official today:

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira is expected to announce he’s struck a deal with Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party.

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira is expected to announce he’s struck a deal with Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party.

He’s holding a joint press conference with Internet Party chief executive Vikram Kumar in parliament at 11am on Tuesday.

Mr Harawira has previously been optimistic about achieving an election alliance with the Internet Party.

“The negotiations for Mana have involved a number of important considerations from policy to personnel, and of course liaison with Mana branches and members up and down the country,” he said. . .

Dotcom is promising to pay all his party’s candidates an MPs salary while they’re campaigning – will he extend that largesse to Mana candidates too?

The Internet Party has policies but no principles.

Mana Party used to have principles but it would appear it’s sold them.

They have nothing positive in common, the only thing that unites them is negative – a hatred of John Key and the National Party.

There’s more than enough competition for that and it is those other opposition parties which are likely to lose from this very odd coupling.

Do we believe him?

Kim Dotcom said he was talking with a sitting MP who was keen to join the Internet Party.

Now he’s saying the talks are over:

Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party says discussions with a sitting electorate MP who was poised to join the party have ended due to the prospect of a tie up with Hone Harawira’s Mana Party. . . .

Today the party said: “Following the recent decision of delegates at the Mana AGM to continue negotiations with the Internet Party regarding a possible alliance, the current MP and the Internet Party have mutually agreed to end further discussions.”

Every MP who was asked denied any intention to jump ship.

Either the MP in questions was lying, the one who was going to jump ship wasn’t asked, or there never was a potential jumper.

Who do we believe?

Dotbomb divides Mana

Kim Dotcom’s reverse Midas touch has infected the Mana Party:

Sue Bradford and other leading Mana Party figures have walked out of the party’s AGM over its decision to continue negotiations towards an alliance with Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party.

After discussions which went into the night at Mataikotare Marae near Rotorua yesterday, Mana’s branches “unanimously” agreed to move forward with the negotiations.

The party has given its leaders a month to negotiate, before they put any proposed alliance out to the party’s local branches for consultation.

However, Mana President Annette Sykes this morning said : “Our movement, I was concerned that it may be fragile and some of our membership – I don’t know whether some have chosen not to come back today.”

“There’s quite a number. We’re not talking hundreds, but we’re talking people who I think are leaders young and old and they are principled people who I have respect for. They’ve gone back to reflect with their branches.”

Ms Bradford this morning confirmed she was among those who had walked out.

“We left us last night so she perhaps includes us among those people because there was deep debate, deep dissension and resistance to the idea of going into an alliance with the Internet Party.”

“Some of us, both Maori and Pakeha, are really disturbed by the idea of going into an alliance with a neo-liberal billionaire.”. . .

The Internet Party has policies but it’s difficult to detect clear priceless principles.

Th Mana Party has principles and some of its members are principled enough to care enough about them than to be wary of the Dotbomb which could well leave the wreckage of their party in its wake.

Hard and harder

What’s Dotcom offering the Mana Party?

Dotcom: technology is what we can bring to Mana

— Michael Parkin (@Michael_Parkin) April 12, 2014

Well yes, that and money.

But there’s a but about what that would cost:

Dotcom says supporting all of Mana's principles will be hard.

— Michael Parkin (@Michael_Parkin) April 12, 2014

And there’s some who hold to those principles who would find it even harder to entertain any relationship with Dotcom.

. . . It’s clear how a Mana-Internet Party alliance will benefit Dotcom. His party would have decent shot at a presence in Parliament after September 20, even if it polls well under 5%.

But what’s in it for Mana? In part, money, which can buy profile, and get the party over the 1.5% of the vote mark (which would get the party a second seat in Parliament under MMP’s coat-tail rule). But is that, along with some liberal policies around broadband and surveillance, enough to overcome the cringe factor involved in getting into bed with what one Mana staffer called the ‘Fat rich white pr**k’? . . .

. . . And as the Mana leader admitted on Maori TV’s Native Affairs last week, two of his top lieutenants – John Minto, Annette Sykes – have expressed wariness about Dotcom, while a third, Sue Bradford. is outright hostile. Bradford says she’ll quit the party if there’s a hookup with Dotcom – and she’ll take some of the party’s white liberal faction with her. We’re note talking big numbers here, but the context is to push from 1.08% of the list vote (the mark Mana hit at the 2011 election) to 1.5%.

I can’t see Minto stomaching Dotcom, either. Minto is a true believer who has fought all his life for left wing causes. He’s not going to hold any truck with a fairweather friend who, in recent history, donated $50,000 to John Banks.

And it’s not just principles at stake:

Will she give it up
Harawira can probably live with a few Pakeha defections – he might even make hay from it. But I suspect Annette Sykes’ thinking is starting to crystalise, too.

Certainly, the outspoken Maori sovereignty hardliner is at the sharp end of things. 

On Native Affairs, Harawira refused to say if a shared Mana-Internet Party list would go Mana, Internet Party, Mana, Internet Party, Mana as candidates from both camps were evenly interweaved. 

But that’s the only outcome the Internet Party could be pushing for. And it would mean Sykes – currently number two on Mana’s list – would have to agree to demotion to third to make way for an Internet Party candidate at number two.

Good luck with that one, Kim.

Turning your back on your principles and dropping down the list as well could be harder still.

If no-one rides free . . .

An ex-staff or Kim Dotcom has revealed that no-one rides for free with him:

A former employee of Kim Dotcom says he was told to lavish ACT Party leader John Banks with gifts and travel offers, possibly to build up favours from the politician. . .

“If you’re thinking as I was – I was thinking ‘how generous, how nice – he must be really liking this gentleman and […] wants to show his hospitality'”.

But in hindsight, he thinks Dotcom was trying to “trap” Mr Banks.

“Looking at the situation in hindsight yeah, it would look as if like he was being stitched up,” Mr Mardikian says.

“No one rides for free with Kim. And if you think about it, and go through every situation, there’s never been a time of just open generosity; it’s always been for something in return.” . . .

If no-one rides for free, what price will Kim Dotcom expect the Mana party to pay for an alliance with his Internet Party?

He will provide money, but what will he want to extract in return?

Two egos no mana

Kim Dotcom is to speak at the Mana Party AGM:

Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom will address the Mana Party annual conference in Rotorua next weekend ahead of Mana’s decision about whether to form an alliance with the Internet Party.

Mana leader Hone Harawira and Mr Dotcom met for the second time in Auckland over the weekend to discuss the potential relationship.

The Mana executive invited Mr Dotcom to speak and he accepted “to talk to and understand the view of Mana members,” a Mana statement says.

The speech will be late Saturday morning in the open session of the conference, which news media can attend. . .

What this does is guarantee that the conference will get more coverage than a wee party might otherwise get.

However, all publicity isn’t good publicity and any relationship with Dotcom and his Internet Party has the potential to tear Mana apart.

Those with principles will leave in disgust that the party would sell out for money.

Dotcom and Mana leader Hone Harawira have little in common politically except a hatred of John Key.

Keeping Stock calls it Dotcomana.

It has no principles.

All it has is two egos and no mana.

Mana’s anitpathy to National saves it from dotbomb

The Mana Party has, somewhat  belatedly, discovered its principles:

. . . Mr Harawira said liasing with Mr Dotcom’s party – to be launched on Thursday – would not be in Mana’s best interests.

“Dotcom would have to commit to getting rid of National and changing the Government before Mana would consider any deal with his Internet Party,” he said.

“That’s a bottom line for Mana. I resigned from the Maori Party because their relationship with National was – and continues to be – destructive to Maori. We won’t be going back there for anyone.” . .

He’s right to stick to his principles, even if they’re based on the wrong premise that National is destructive to Maori.

The Herald opines that a Mana-Internet marriage of convenience would be a cynical step too far:

. . . Two parties with little in common aside from an antipathy to John Key and covert surveillance would be guilty of a new level of cynicism based solely on mutual benefit. For Mana, there would be the prospect of boosted funding and a higher profile during the election campaign; for the Internet Party, a representation in Parliament that it could never achieve on its own. . .

Some within the Mana Party may believe that current polling shows they have nothing to lose. Any perception that they were selling out ideologically would be more than offset by the prospect of more seats in Parliament if the construct with Mr Dotcom’s party increased their combined party vote to anything more than about 2 per cent.

But nothing is more important to a political party than its credibility. Mana would pay a heavy price on two counts. First, potential supporters would see a party willing, in its desperation, to compromise its beliefs. Second, they would be alienated by its readiness to take advantage of a much-maligned aspect of MMP as never before. By any yardstick, this marriage of convenience would be a sorry step too far.

That Harawira and some in the party even contemplated a union with someone with whom they have so little in common doesn’t reflect well on them and their readiness to be swayed by money.

That Kim Dotcom was willing to manipulate our electoral system, in a way not dissimilar to the way he’s using a back door entrance to the stock market, just seems like business as normal for him.

However, that even Mana has cold feet makes it even more likely that the Internet Party will be another  dotbomb.

 

1 + 1 – disaffected = ?

Dim Post does the maths on a possible Mana and Internet Party alliance:

. . . I guess both parties are going into this with the fantasy that 1% of the vote plus 1% of the vote will give them 2%, thus an extra MP. But if the merger costs each party more than 50% of their potential voters because the complementary party is anathema to them then they’ll go backwards.

What Dotcom, who is bankrolling the Internet Party, and Mana have in common is an extreme dislike of John Key and National. But the enemy of you enemy isn’t always your friend, nor one your other friends will stomach.

If you’re an adviser to Kim Dotcom or Harawira then a merger must look awful attractive, because it’ll make your life a whole lot easier. But voters don’t vote for parties on their track-record of making life easier for their MPs and staffers.

Most voters also dislike naked opportunism and tend not to like extremists. This Facebook Post from Jevan Goulter introduces several of those from the radical left:

Guys, MANA DOTCOM!
Ok so we would be helping a rich fella with a bunch of money, but it would obviously help MANA to! I’m not saying I think it’s a good idea either, and it’s only my opinion, I speak on behalf of myself, just wanna be clear! The parties would not merge, we would share a list, and guaranteed MANA would have the top spots to start! If we did it, the difference could be 2 or 3 MANA MPs, and we remain our own party! It’s not all doom and gloom ! Could be the difference of having say John Minto and Te Hamua Shane Nikora in the House! Didn’t mention Annette Sykes cause she will already be there. . .

The though of those radicals in parliament is enough to drive centre voters to the safe haven of National.

There is a chance that an alliance of the Internet and Mana parties could get more of their MPs into parliament than either could achieve alone.

But the risk of butchering their own support and frightening enough swinging voters to the centre right is greater.

One plus one, minus the disaffected from the individual parties could deliver less support for both and more for the party which can be depended on for stability.

Mana’s principles for sale?

The Mana Party is discussing an Alliance-like deal with the yet-to-be-formed Internet Party:

The Mana Party says a merger with Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party is not an option, but an arrangement involving a joint list and sharing the party vote, could be.

Mana leader Hone Harawira says he met with Mr Dotcom last month and had what he says was a general political discussion.

Mana’s secretary Gerard Hehir says a formal merger is not an option but there may be scope for an arrangement where they campaign together under an umbrella party, to take advantage of the combined party vote. . .

The several parties which held hands under the Alliance umbrella had left-wing principles in common.

Mana’s principles are pro-Maori and solidly left-wing.

It isn’t clear what, if any, principles the Internet Party has.

Many of  Kim Dotcom’s, its would-be founder, are questionable and have little if anything in common with Mana.

This is clear to one of Mana’s founding members and a former candidate, Sue Bradford, who said Dotcom would be a deal-breaker for her:

Ms Bradford, a former Green Party MP who has been with Mana since its inception in 2011, told RadioLIVE there aren’t many similarities between the two parties.

“I find it incredible that a party with the kaupapa Mana has should be considering going into an alliance with Kim Dotcom – a man who tried to buy off the right and failed and now he seems to have turned to the left to buy the left off,” she says. 

“This is so far from the kaupapa I’ve dedicated my life to and I find it quite extraordinary.”

She says it “wouldn’t be possible” for her to stay with the party if it did do a deal with Dotcom.

“I don’t think doing deals with right-wing internet billionaires who are facing a number of legal challenges is the way forward for any party that adheres to the principles of social, and economic and treaty justice that I believe in,” she says.

“We should really be thinking twice about this.”

Ms Bradford says there are others in the party who think the same way she does, and has expressed her views to the party leadership.

It could be a “short-sighted conversation” and a “bubble in a tea cup”, and nothing could come of it in the end, she says.

She also had questions about how Dotcom treats his own staff, who have complained about poor wages and not being paid. . .

Bradford has principles and is sticking to them.

Harawira is showing that any principles he has are for sale.

Imagine . . .

Imagine there’s a wealthy man who had been convicted of crimes in another country, is awaiting extradition to face charges on other matters.

Imagine that he’s also facing serious allegations about paying staff far less than the minimum wage and owes considerable sums to creditors.

Imagine that to amuse himself, keep himself in the headlines, avenge himself of real or imagined slights and/or possibly get enough political clout to prevent the extradition, he decides to set up a political party.

Imagine that this man is going to get an MP from a small right or centre-right party to defect to his party.

Imagine the uproar from the left and the coverage in the media.

Would it be as mild and if not supportive, at least as unquestioning as this story that says Dotcom claims first MP?

Internet mogul Kim Dotcom claims he has signed up one sitting MP to join his new party before the election and is talking to three more – a poaching raid unprecedented in New Zealand politics. . . .

He refuses to disclose the identity of the MP, saying it will be revealed once the Internet Party is registered and has chosen all its candidates, probably in June.

His revelation came in an exclusive interview with the Herald on Sunday yesterday.

Dotcom said he was also in talks with Mana Party leader Hone Harawira to unite their two parties under one umbrella, enabling the Internet Party to ride into Parliament on the coat-tails of the Te Tai Tokerau electorate MP.

The two leaders and their party bosses, Vikram Kumar and Gerard Hehir, met on February 28 at a house on Auckland’s North Shore.

The Mana Party executive will this week consider a merger proposal. Mana would bring one or two electorates, the Internet Party would bring a more broadly-based party vote and $1 million-plus in campaign funding. . .

The reporter might think that enough has been said about Dotcom’s history but surely, when the Supreme Court has just dismissed his claim to see all the evidence the US has against him, it ought to be part of the story.

. . . “The Mana Party is one of several parties we are talking to, to form an alliance,” Dotcom revealed.

“We are also talking to a number of MPs that have won electorates and are likely to win electorates again. Our goal is to put together a good alliance to make sure this agenda we have gets into Parliament.

“I can tell you right now that we will certainly have one MP with an electorate in the Internet Party.” . . .

It’s difficult to believe a National MP, with the odds favouring a return not just to parliament but probably government, would be mad enough to have anything to do with this man and his party.

Someone in Labour, doing the maths and thinking that s/he’s facing at best another three years in opposition if not losing a seat altogether might be desperate, or stupid, enough to contemplate changing wakas.

But anyone with a passing knowledge of history would know that there are far more MPs who’ve done that and disappeared than the very few who’ve kept their seats.

The accompanying editorial does mention the extradition, gagging order against his former body guard and creditors.

But it too avoids any mention of buying elections or crony capitalism and attempted corruption that would almost certainly be part of a story were the would-be puppet master be attempting to pull the strings of MPs in the centre or right.

Not the workers’ friend

Kim Dotcom has taken court action to gag a former body guard.

. . . Dotcom made a successful application for an interim injunction against Wayne Tempero in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. The action came soon after the Herald reported that Tempero was set to release “secret revelations” about Dotcom’s “mindset and megalomania”. . .

That hasn’t stopped other staff talking to Whaleoil who has a story of slave wages, bullying, intimidation and the sheer effrontery of a man spending literally millions on himself but short-changing his most loyal staff.

Labour, the Green and Mana parties like to think they’re the workers’ friends.

They and New Zealand First have all been courting, or courted by, Dotcom in the hope he can help them defeat National.

The enemy of their enemy could be their friend but do they want to be friends with someone who appears to be anything but the workers’ friend?

And will the media which have given Dotcom a pretty easy ride, start asking some harder questions now?

P.S. Former Labour president Mike Williams, just said on RadioNZ National’s panel that he’s on Dotcom’s side with the gagging order.