Fresh vs stale

The National Party had a big intake of new MPs in 2005 and another reasonable intake in 2008.

A couple of mid-term resignations and end-of-term retirements brought in more new MPs in 2011.

Five MPs have announced they’re retiring at the end of this term and yesterday Bill English announced he would be standing on the list only.

This gives the party more opportunities for refreshment and will provide a caucus with a balance of experience and fresh faces.

Contrast that with Labour which gained few MPs in the last few elections because it lost electorates and sacrificed newer candidates for older ones on its list.

It’s had one new MP mid-term after the death of Parekura Horimia and might get a second in the Christchurch East by-election.

But so far none of the older long-serving MPs are showing any signs of retiring – not even Trevor Mallard although he’s still a staunch supporter of the Anyone but Cunliffe club.

There are a variety of reasons why some people retire and some stay on.

Among the obvious ones are that retiring National MPs can see life, and work, outside politics while it looks like Labour ones can’t.

That raises a question: if people don’t see opportunities outside parliament, how good are they in it?

Whatever the answer to that the contrast between a fresher National Party in government and stale Labour in opposition is stark.

People in #gigatownoamaru see lots of opportunities in being the Southern Hemisphere’s fastest town.

Better to know bias

Shane Taurima, general manager of TVNZ’s Maori and Pacific Programmes and Q + A interviewer, is seeking to be Labour’s candidate in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election.

He  said he wasn’t a member of the party last week which, as Keeping Stock, points out, means he will have to get a special waiver from the party’s ruling council.

The party’s rules allow that, and I would be surprised if other parties don’t have a similar rule.

If they are sensible, it’s not one they’d employ often.

Taurima blames his non-membership on his job:

He said Horomia, who died last month after battling a number of health issues, had spoken to him in the past about entering politics. . .

. . . “Given my career choice and the absolute need to be impartial, apolitical and professional I would politely decline his approaches and he respected me for that. It wasn’t my time back then. I wasn’t ready. But I am ready now.” . . .

The need to be impartial, apolitical and professional in his work is unquestioned. But is that achieved by hiding strong support for a party?

Wouldn’t it be better for someone in his position to be upfront about his political leanings?

Isn’t it better for viewers to know about a bias and be the judge of whether that affects his work than to hide it and have them wondering?

People behind politics

When politics gets personal it’s usually not for good reason.

The genuine goodwill towards Parekura Horomia and genuine sorrow over his death has been a pleasant exception to this rule.

People from across the political spectrum have paid tribute to him and in doing so have provided a far better picture and understanding of him in death than most of us would have had of him in life.

The biographies of political leaders are generally well canvassed but other MPs come, serve and go with the public who put them in parliament knowing little about the people behind the politics.

Even in these days of instant news, there’s room for more in-depth profiles which would tell us more about the people we pay to run the country.

It might help improve the public perception of most politicians and show up the few who should find another job.

Parekura Horomia 1950 – 2013

Parekura Horomia, MP and Maori Affairs spokesman and former Minister, has died.

In his maiden speech he said:

– I’ve been a fencer, shearer, scrub cutter and printer.
– I’ve also worked in the upper levels of bureaucracy in management roles.

As a Maori Member of Parliament I have a dual responsibility.
– I have a responsibility to my people and the wider public.

– Unfortunately, if we look at the statistics for the people I represent the picture is bleak. We feature disproportionately in negative statistics. . .

. . . – The future for Maori is about acknowledging who we are and determining where we want to go. . . 

– Not every Maori will reap the same success as Michael Campbell but we should be encouraging them all to swing that high.

– We have to set an example for the younger generation and I accept that challenge as a new Maori Member of Parliament.

– Let me take you back a few years to the time when I was a schoolboy. I vividly recall walking to school barefoot with my seven brothers and sisters.

– Everyday, whatever the weather, we walked five kilometres to school and back.

– While this may not have been unusual for Maori children, there was a certain irony about this journey.

– Everyday we would watch the empty school bus drive past us and other whanau to collect the pakeha kids that lived a half a kilometre from our school. This bus would pick them up, turn around, drive back past us and take those kids to the school in Tologa Bay.

– As a child the bureaucrats who made those decisions mattered little. All I knew is that I had to walk and the bus was leaving me and the rest of my whanaunga behind.

– I used to dream of being picked up by that school bus. But as I grew older we became more resilient. We went from wishing it would stop to pick us up …to thinking that if it did stop we wouldn’t hop on anyway.

– I relate that story now because Maori are often told we’ve missed the bus. And many cases Maori have not even had the opportunity to get on the bus.

– The irony in all of this is that I’m now the Associate Minister of Education, responsible for school transport!

– So now I’m not only riding the bus, I’m helping to drive the bus with my colleagues, Mr Samuels, Mr Mallard and Mr Maharey.

– As one of the drivers you can be damn sure I’m going to stop the bus and pick up as many Maori as possible. . .

He held the seat of Ikaroa-Rawhiti since first winning it in 1999. His death will force a by-election.

 

Labour not interested in Maori or provinces

Is Labour in denial or do they no longer care about the Maori vote and the provinces?

Their ill informed crticism on the extra funding to enable MPs in big electorates, including two of their own MPs, to employ an staff member suggest it’s the latter.

Maori Party leader Tariana Turia didn’t miss the opporutnity this gave her:

For Labour to suggest this is ‘outrageous’ or ‘secret’ is bizarre when they have sat on the same committee I have, year in, year out, hearing about the inequities of this issue”.

“Even more bizarre, when two of their MPs, Nanaia Mahuta and Parekura Horomia, have also been saddled with the burden of travelling across large electorates, and will also receive the extra support”.

“I guess it shows what value Labour places in meeting the needs of the Maori electorates”.

Wee parties might survive with niche support but it’s not good for democracy or the country if a party which is supposed to be a major one writes off Maori and provincial voters.

Wanna know a secret?

TV3’s expose on the “secret” deal  to fund a third staff member for Maori electorates and general electorates larger than 20,000 square kilomtres was really old news.

Kiwiblog points out, both he and I covered the story when the government announced it in November as part of the coalition deal with the Maori Party.

The shock-horror coverage of old news as a supposed cover-up puts the story in Macdoctor’s spam journalism category.

It also shows that the journalist doesn’t understand that a large part of electorate MPs’ responsibilities are in their electorates; nor that while each electorate has more or less the same number of people in it for a very good reasons , it is much harder to give them the service they require when they’re spread over 10s of thousands of square kilometres than if they’re contained in a city.

The extra money isn’t for the MPs personally, it’s to employ an extra staff member to help their constituents. That it doesn’t appear to be coming with any extra for office space, telephone and other costs means it’s not quite as helpful as it appeared to be at first. But it will still pay for a real human being to assist the people who require the services of an MP and in spite of technological advances like Skype, face to face meetings are what most constituents need when they’ve got problems.

However, TV3 has done us a service by showing us that Labour doesn’t understand the needs of their constituents either:

Labour believes the deal stinks and it is accusing National of secrecy.

Don’t they realise that they still hold two Maori electorates so their MPs get this extra funding too and ought to have known about it since it was announced in November?

What on earth do their MPs Parekura Horomia and Nanaia Mahuta do if they don’t know how many staff members they are entitled to employ?

The table below shows the area of each electorate, colour coded by the party which holds each one. Labour’s ignorance on this issue which shows they don’t understand the needs of people in the larger electortates  explain why there was a blue wash at the last election.

Te Tai Tonga	161,443
Clutha-Southland	38,247
West Coast-Tasman	38,042
Te Tai Hauauru	35,825
Waitaki	34,888
Ikaroa-Rawhiti	30,952
Kaikoura	23,706
Waiariki	19,212
Te Tai Tokerau	16,370
East Coast	13,649
Taranaki-King Country	12,869
Hauraki-Waikato	12,580
Northland	12,255
Rangitikei	12,189
Wairarapa	11,922
Taupo	9,101
Selwyn	7,854
Napier	6,866
Rangitata	6,826
Whanganui	5,948
Invercargill	5,617
Rotorua	5,535
Waikato	4,947
Coromandel	4,653
Tukituki	4,277
Dunedin South	2,702
Waimakariri	1,757
Otaki	1,728
Whangarei	1,628
Hunua	1,266
Bay of Plenty	1,188
Rodney	1,051
Helensville	865
Tamaki Makaurau	730
Dunedin North	642
New Plymouth	579
Nelson	565
Rimutaka	518
Auckland Central	499
Mana	321
Hutt South	311
Papakura	255
Waitakere	254
Mangere	155
Hamilton West	148
Wellington Central	146
Ohariu	130
Port Hills	115
New Lynn	97
Tauranga	89
Christchurch East	78
Palmerston North	46
Wigram	40
East Coast Bays	37
Hamilton East	37
Manurewa	37
Maungakiekie	37
Botany	36
Tamaki	36
Mt Albert	34
Manukau East	31
Pakuranga	29
Christchurch Central	28
Ilam	27
Northcote	27
Rongotai	27
Te Atatu	27
North Shore	25
Mt Roskill	24
Epsom	23

Inequities over staff increases

One of the unfortunate consequences of MMP is the larger area of electorates. The difficulty and added expense of servicing them has not been recognised by extra resources for their MPs.

However, thanks to one of the clauses in the agreement between National and the Maori Party  that will change.

All Maori MPs and all MPs in general seats which cover an area greater than 20,000 square kilometres will be entitled to an extra staff member, equivalent to three full time out of parliament staffers.

The Electorates which will benefit from this are:

Name	Area sq.km
Te Tai Tonga	161,443
Clutha-Southland	38,247
West Coast-Tasman	38,042
Te Tai Hauauru	35,825
Waitaki	34,888
Ikaroa-Rawhiti	30,952
Kaikoura	23,706

Waiariki	19,212
Te Tai Tokerau	16,370

Hauraki-Waikato

12,580

Tamaki Makaurau

730

The MPs representing them are Rahui Katene, Bill English, Chris Auchinvole,  Parekura Horomia, Jacqui Dean, Colin King, Tariana Turia, Te Ururoa Flavell, Hone Harawira,  Nanaia Mahuta and Pita Sharples.

The area the bigger ones cover definitely justifies more help. But there are 21 general electorates which cover bigger areas than Tamaki Makaurau.

That raises the question of why an electorate covering a relatively small area of 730 square kilometres needs an extra staff member if these, which are bigger, don’t:

East Coast	13,649
Taranaki-King Country	12,869

Northland	12,255
Rangitikei	12,189
Wairarapa	11,922
Taupo	9,101
Selwyn	7,854
Napier	6,866
Rangitata	6,826
Whanganui	5,948
Invercargill	5,617
Rotorua	5,535
Waikato	4,947
Coromandel	4,653
Tukituki	4,277
Dunedin South	2,702
Waimakariri	1,757
Otaki	1,728
Whangarei	1,628
Hunua	1,266
Bay of Plenty	1,188
Rodney	1,051
Helensville	865