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.
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.
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.
I/S at No Right Turn on Pita Sharples’ suggestion that Christchurch’s homeless squat in abandoned red-zone properties rather than sleeping in their cars.
As more oil leaks from the Rena, National’s beginning to leak too. I’ve just been hearing about their latest internal polling, and it ain’t pretty. As the earlier Horizon poll suggested, the Rena has been an inflection point for National and the masses of soft support they’ve accumulated is drifting away.
The Maori Party leaders have racked up the highest ministerial expenses after the PM – despite not being in Cabinet. What is even more extraordinary is Tariana Turia’s response to being questioned on this.
Shivering in your earthquake-damaged home, wondering how you’ll come up with $190 a week for a campervan after your emergency benefit ends? Living on cat food because GST and price hikes put real food out of reach? Don’t worry, Pita Sharples to the rescue: he’s gifting 1.9 million taxpayer dollars to a hapu in his electorate to build an inflatable, plastic waka.
A new Horizon poll suggests that Pita Sharples’ majority in Tamaki Makaurau has been slashed by 80% and he could be overtaken by Labour’s Shane Jones. There’s a bit of scuttlebutt that Willie Jackson might run for Hone’s new Left/Maori Party (if it gets off the ground). In that case, expect a real three-way race, which Sharples would almost certainly lose.
Senior Maori Party staffers have been deserting the party in droves in recent months, including chief of staff Harry Walker, repulsed by the leadership selling out to National. It’s gotten so bad that they’ve had to out-source their spin doctoring to the Tories. You think I’m joking? I wish. This illuminates Hone Harawira’s fight with the leadership.
At this stage in the electoral cycle, government support parties are usually looking to try to differentiate themselves from the main governing party. They need to do this to show they still hold true to their own values and have a separate identity that is worth voting for. The Maori Party is doing to opposite.
Why did Hone Harawira pick a fight if he wasn’t prepared to see it out? One News last night had him saying he wants to stay with the Maori Party. Patrick Gower reckons Hone’s assault on the leadership is all about building cred to take over next year but Hone’s saying he would support Te Ururoa Flavell for male co-leader. Curiouser and curiouser.
Hone Harawira is many things but stupid isn’t one of them. He has cleverly created a situation where Tariana Turia and her lackeys have had to attack him for daring to speak truth to power. It’s Hone who has been the protagonist. It’s he who has fronted to the media while Turia has hidden. He’s been planning this and he knows how it will play out.
Pita Sharples wants Maori flag to fly over prisons to raise prisoners’ morale. What a bizarre and useless suggestion. Instead, how about alleviating the poverty that is the main driver of crime?
‘We don’t know if we can support this’.
It’s a very delicate title for the Maori Party’s press release on National’s foreshore and seabed offer but it reveals much. On the one hand, they know they can’t accept a deal that doesn’t give title to iwi. On the other hand, the co-leaders really don’t want to leave government.
The other day, Chris Finlayson described himself as a Pollyanna – it’s an American term (of derision) for someone who sees everything as positive, ignoring unhappy realities. Finlayson is all bouncy and optimistic, selling his ‘no-one owns it’ ‘solution’ to the F&S issue. But I have not heard a single Maori leader who agrees with his offer or anything like it.
Rodney Hide was furious at John Key for signing the Declaration of Indigenous Rights behind his back but he’ll get over it. ACT is getting tonnes of real policy wins. What’s disturbing is seeing the Maori Party celebrating a ‘win’ then meekly rolling over when Key tells them it’s meaningless. Why does this keep happening? Because the Maori Party is stuck. And, sadly, each loss just mires them further.
Pita Sharples, like Labour, thinks the Declaration of Indigenous Rights matters. John Key sees a meaningless piece of paper, the signing of which costs him nothing. This, along with giving Tariana Turei Whanau Ora, is part of National’s clever manipulation of the Maori Party. The Maori Party leadership is co-opted, ready to roll over on the real issue- the foreshore and seabed.
Regular readers of The Standard will know that a primary driver of crime is joblessness. It’s no surprise, therefore, to see that crime […]
Pita Sharples’ speech on race relations day, and his comments that followed, certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons. Did Sharples really mean to suggest that we should do away with “one person one vote”? I don’t think so…
Seats on the supercity, 3 strikes, tertiary cuts, national standards, RWC TV, ETS, foreshore and seabed (soon enough). The list of issues that the Maori Party has been shafted by National on keeps growing. Yet Tariana Turia’s ill-defined ‘Whanua Ora’ policy, which looks like nothing so much as privisation by stealth, gets carte blanche. What’s going on here?
How’s this for insanity: the finals in the World Cup will be broadcast live on four free to air channels as well as Sky. That’s pretty much the definition of overkill and it has got to have cost a bomb, thanks to the Government’s disastrous handling of the issue.
TVNZ reports: “Associate Education Minister Pita Sharples has labelled the National Standards policy as damaging to Maori but later refused to comment after […]
I could hardly believe my ears when I heard Waatea News on RNZ this morning. Pita Sharples admitted that the Maori Party knew […]
Via Newsroom [offline], Pita Sharples has confirmed reports of an internal revolt within the Maori Party over its support for National’s ETS. The […]
The Maori Party was never going to be a sustainable political vehicle. No political movement that tries to exist in defiance of the […]
If we’re to believe National’s version of events, Pita Sharples kept secret from his colleagues that he was going to take $3 million from […]
I was joking when I said all we need now is for Sharples to up the ante in the government vs government bidding […]
So, let me get this straight. Pita Sharples, treating his ministry’s budget like a personal slush fund, decided that TPK would give Maori […]
It’s a strange day when you’re praising Tau Henare. But at least he’s standing up for Maori seats, unlike the pathetic display from […]
Rodney Hide has said that having Maori seats on the Auckland Supercity council would go completely against his party’s principles. So, he would […]
I’m just trying to understand this Maori flag thing. The Crown (in the guise of Minister Pita Sharples) has decided that Maori will […]
Remember – March against National’s undemocratic supercity today 25th, noon, Queen St [More info] Today in the Herald John Key is talking tough, […]
According to the Dom Post Judith Collins is preparing legislation to reintroduce private prisons into New Zealand’s corrections system. The arguments against privatisation […]
Surprise, surprise, it’s Garth George. “The economic situation is without a doubt the most urgent of predicaments to be dealt with, but so […]
