Sharples and Turia remind me of an old couple running the family store with no kids to pass it on to.
They want to retire. If they do, that’ll be curtains for everything they’ve built. Without them, the Maori Party goes to a well deserved death.
Plus Key will be pressuring them to stay. They’re his only ghost of a chance. Even that scenario is a long shot the way the polls are going, and assumes Sharples and Flavell can holds their seats.
How much longer can they keep going? Sharples especially wants out. They’ll be 72 and 70 in 2014. Surely, it would be nicer to go now with some dignity, rather than cling on until they have to be carried out feet first.
More like an old couple with a house no-one wants as it’s in the wrong part of town….Nactville.
Key will be pressuring them to stay.
I can picture it. Full of charm and flattery. Turia melts before his adoring gaze. Sharples’ chest swells with pride. They walk away for a brief chat. Turia says “He really likes me Peter” Sharples says “He likes me too. If we play our cards right we’ll each get a knighthood out of this. Let’s do it, let’s stay another term”.
You’re probably right, but wouldn’t it be great if they both were honest by fronting up and saying: “You know we can’t keep out ghost Party going, John.”
I feel a bit sorry for pita sharples….. from what i know about him, it looks to me like he’s spent the last four years trapped in turias nasty little payback game……
As he contemplates how his lifelong commitment to redressing the imbalances forced onto his people is being degraded on the alter of turias ego, and nationals underlying agenda…..I can imagine the galling feeling, at the least, that he must be feeling…..
Turia, on the other hand, is going to have a lot of pointed questions to answer when it comes time for her to seek admission through the pearly gates……
You’re way too generous towards PS, he’s no babe in the woods and knows full well the lie of the land then, now and in the future for him and the party.
Another skilled operator who presents an image whilst sitting back in the beemer and troughing it for all its worth.
Agreed, but with the naivity of thinking it’s better to be inside the tent than outside. With Key outside’s way more effective and inside’s destructive but Sharples has disappointingly been too thick to see this. I had high hopes for Pita but he’s blown it. He’s sold his own people out and a whole raft of others in the process as well. The sooner he pisses off the better off we’ll all be.
Just do the job from home and collect the pay.
Of course they can’t retire; NZ can afford more bludgers on the super.
Reckon that they are entitled as one is 69 and one 70.
Did they go bad, or were they always bad is the age old politcal enquiry.
The Māori party has performed one useful educational service for those into politics by illustrating the redundancy of this type of identity polititcs as formatted into a parliamentary political party.
Both Pita and Tariana have indicated that they may go on into 2014 before appointing successors to maintain continuity and to capitalise on the gains they have made to date. There is no shortage of high quality personnel willing to step into their shoes from within the Maori Party therefore the Maori Party’s future is assured.
The Maori Party will hold the balance of power in 2014 and it would be foolish to write them off if you have ambitions on the Treasury benches.