I’m sorry, what?
Maori Party ‘open to Labour’
The Maori Party has used the annual Ratana anniversary to send a message to Labour not to rule it out as a potential coalition partner.Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell said the party was looking at all options. It would do as it had in the past and talk to its supporters after the election results were known.
…Oh the Maori Party, after 6 years of betraying Maori by propping up a Government that has been devastating to Maori for a few baubles of power are now ‘open to Labour’ are they?
The only reason the Maori Party are ‘open’ is because they are terrified of the possibility of MANA and the Labour Party cutting a deal over the Maori electorates that would see the Maori Party obliterated.
In an election as close as 2014, every vote counts and the simple reality is this. If the difference between being the Government and not being the Government for John Key is the Maori Party, well then the Maori Party will go with their friend John Key again.
The simple reality is that Maori Party can not be trusted and allowing them to remain after the election would ultimately cost Labour the election because they will side with Key.
The Maori Party swallowed dead rat after dead rat for crumbs from Key’s table and their argument that being at the table gave them some type of control of Key has been shown up for the delusion it always was.
What’s the point of sitting at Key’s table when he’s already sold the table? The Maori Party have done little for Maori and Labour can’t trust them cutting a deal with Key again.
When your enemy is drowning, throw them an anvil, it’s time Labour and MANA talked about anvils.
The Labour Party created the Maori Party when it forbid iwi and hapu from testing their right to ownership over the seabed and fore shore. Labour compounded their apparent contempt for Maori sovereignty issues when they oversaw the paramilitary style police assault on Ruatoki. I doubt many Maori suffer the kind of memory loss the Labour party would wish of them.
The Maori party has more credibility among the tangata whenua than Labour. I’m a member of the Mana party, but I have a deep respect for the likes of Te Ururoa Flavell, Tariana Turia and Pita Sharpels. Labour has a long history of taking the support of Maori for granted while pandering to the sensibilities of the reactionary right.
I hope National fail at the next election, but I would not expect a Labour led government to allow any of the significant advances to which Maori aspire.
MANA (of which I am a member) needs to stop hoping for some ‘gift-from-heaven’ deal with Labour that might deliver it another seat or two. Let’s not forget that Labour are a neo-liberal party which, on occasion, throws out a mildly leftist policy or two.
MANA needs to do its own work and win extra seats under its own power. Winning Te Tai Tokerau and getting 1.5% of the vote (roughly – for a list seat) should be the first goals, and that will be hard enough. But we do it ourselves then we make a statement that the socialist left isn’t dead. Praying for the Maori Party to be squeezed by Labour is not a strategy.
The Maori party has some legitimate reason to exist, though in the recent past it chose strange bedfellows. A party like Labour, which nursed vipers like Douglas and Prebble, has to be ready to forgive and cooperate with the Maori party once they tire of selling their constituents out for ministerial perks.
How can you leave Cullen out of the mix. He has done more to disenfranchise more working class kiwis in my opinion through his belief and extremely successful policies to reduce home ownership. Now rents are a much higher percentage of household income than they were 15 years ago and have turned the working class into lifelong serfs in their own country I think Cullen deserves more attention and derision than either of those other misguided sycophants. If for no other reason than he should have used his intellect to work out the damage his actions would do for decades. Forgive me if I seem bitter, but I would still live in New Zealand if I could afford to buy a house there.
But I digress. It seems some strange pull of humankind to try and appease those who have power and money and acquiesce to them. Otherwise we wouldn’t have monarchies or the poor not bothering to vote out the puppets of the 1% in supposedly democratic societies. When I work out the reason for that I will be able to solve the worlds problems and make it a fairer place for all where the 1% wont exist. Until we can work out that dilemma of the human mind, then the rich will always have the power and control of the majority. it isn’t their fault, the rich are just filling a vacuum that is there due to the flaws in human nature. Don’t despise them. Admire them for having the courage to stand in the spotlight that their greed has given them. They are just as flawed as the rest of us, just slightly more so.
And hence why Māori will vote for the Māori party at their own expense. The Māori party voters are slightly less greedy humans than those they are voting for. They admire and live in the shadow of those in power and the powerful will have to really mess up before they lose the admiration of those they are screwing over.
While there is some justice in what you say, I would characterise Cullen as a dry Keynesian rather than
a vile traitor, profiteer, liar (and incidentally completely
unsuccessful economist) like Douglas and Prebble.
He was a good manager and a safe pair of hands for the NZ economy. Unhappily, his colleagues were trying to drag him to the right, when the country needed him moving to the left. Even so he was the best finance minister NZ has had in thirty years – the tragedy is that that is not much of a compliment.
Come on Martyn, wake up and smell the coffee.
Unless you are privileged to any inside information to the contrary, I think you are dreaming in thinking that Labour will cut a deal with the Mana Party.
Labour fully intend to regain all the Maori Seats.
As Chris Trotter likes to say ‘Labour would rather keep control of the losing side than lose control of the winning side.’
With the Maori Party imploding Labour are out to destroy the Mana Party which they see as a danger on their Left flank.
Labour have already given up winning this election.
We can all read the numbers, and all the polls are showing that the Labour/Green bloc are very evenly matched with the National bloc, and with New Zealand First guaranteed to go with National.
Labour fully accept their defeat, and are even courting it, openly touting a whole raft of vote losing policies. Like…
Raising the age of the pension to 67,
Like….
Supporting Deep Sea Oil Drilling,
Like…
Removing promised tax cuts from the poor, but leaving in place established tax cuts for the rich.
Like…
Leaving in place National’s hike on GST,
Like…
Reversing their promise to low income families to remove the GST off Fresh Fruit and vegetables.
Does anyone really believe that by reversing all these policies Labour will reconnect with the disadvantaged and alienated non-voters who they claim to be targetting?
Freed from the need to seriously fight the election against National, Labour can now turn their full attention to crushing the Mana Party. Under this concentrated onslaught Hone Harawira will be tipped from his seat in Te Tai Tokerau.
Unless there has been any change in Labour’s announced strategy, Labour fully intend to regain all the Maori seats.
And we will be stuck with another 3 years of the Nats.
(There will be an added bonus for Labour in that they will be able to keep the Green Party out of government again. A policy, that they have assiduously pursued over several elections, when they have a choice, always preferring conservative coalition partners, and locking the Greens out. This time they don’t have that choice so will be quite content to sit this one out.)
Great post, Jenny. I loved the Trotter quote, “‘Labour would rather keep control of the losing side than lose control of the winning side.”
@jenny. You are absolutely right. Over the past year Shane Jones has numerously heralded the intentions (of Labour’s Maori caucus) to take out all seven Maori electorates – which is evidently possible. In a sense, Labour are their own worst enemy. Their in-fighting and the lingering sway from the Greens-Mana Left will cost them the elections. MMP means at times losing battles to win the war. If Labour wants to win it should: 1) engineer electoral positions with the Greens and Mana; 2) stop with their lurch to the centre; 3) stop trying to eat Green votes and instead creatively go after the 800,000 ppl that didn’t vote last time; and 4) sack the old neoliberals like Goff, King and Mallard.
It is evident that Cunliffe is only the Labour leader on paper, taking Labour’s soft policy announcements as well as keeping the neoliberal status quo, one could be mistaken to believe that the old vanguard is running the Labour caucus.
If Labour can get over themselves and work with the Greens and Mana, they will break the 62(3) seats needed to govern. If it’s another same old same old ‘Labour election campaign’, they will give Key a third term.
There’s no ‘I’ in team, but there’s one in idiocy. Hopefully, this is just a bad dream…probably not.
@TK
Good post; the only thing I would point out is that while there’s no “I” in team there’s anagrams of “meat””at me””mate”!
As far as the neo liberals who make up the bulk of “elected” MPs go, I always say if it looks like shit, smells like shit and feels like shit, it’s probably shit. The Maori Party and the Mana Party are equally deluded if they think the bosses will let anyone vote their power away. It can’t be naivety. It’s misdirected belief in a big con.
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