The attack by Key on Hone over the amount of days he is not in Parliament are nothing short of lazy Maori dog whistling. This sort of naked racism plays incredibly well to the rump base of the National Party and Key needs to switch on the anger within that voter base rather than inspire them as the vacant inspiration routine isn’t drawing the crowds like it did.
I’ve seen Hone’s itinerary, he is one of the hardest working MPs in bloody Parliament. He is constantly on the road meeting community groups up and down the country when he has no speaking rights on issues in front of the House. The incredible amount of work he has spent networking and building contacts throughout the country will pay a hefty dividend come election day, but if his role is to listen and represent those opinions, he is easily more in touch than most other MPs.
What we can expect is far more of this nastiness from Key, he has to invoke the less informed fury of his voter base to have any chance of regaining the Treasury benches come the election, look at the mean spirited, spitefulness in his opening address yesterday.
Come the election, Key will be foaming with hate and the irresponsibility of his need to tap the darker angels of our nature will make this election far dirtier than it needs to be.
Gee I hope this comes back to bite Key on the bum. He deserves nothing less.
Hone Harawira was able to demonstrate that he obtained permission for 100% of his absences from parliament. Guess what, the PM would not offer up any information to say that his MPs could show the same.
It’s interesting to note that Key refuses to release and maker public National MP’s attendance records ion Parliament – including his own!
I wonder what Dear Leader is hiding?
Frank,
I heard a sound bite on nat-rad yesterday (tues pm) where the PM was surprised that the details were not released, in his defense it appears someone else made that decision. But then, it’s John Key we are talking about. Not exactly known for his honesty with the public.
“Green Party used Hansard… to calculate that over the same period Mr Key was absent on 81 of 186 sitting days.”
Russel Norman’s comparison of Key to Muldoon is looking more apt all the time.
This is a good example of the left, including Hone, handling this story badly. It’s like Hone hasn’t had any media training.
This story was a gift and Hone could have:
– called National out for hiding their absences from the public. Turn this around and make that the story.
– released a one page summary of where he was for those absences (provides moral high ground).
– compared his absences to Key’s (they are comparable).
– differentiated himself from key who is a multi-millionaire attacking the elected rep of the electorate with voters on the lowest income in NZ. Why would Key attack their advocate? It’s against the Kiwi ‘fair go’.
– he should not have defended himself like a school kid who was caught (“I wasn’t wagging”).
And while we’re on this story, can someone start a campaign to oust the Hoskins guy? He needs to go. It’s intolerable that mainstream TV have such an anti-Maori host at prime time. It’s not the 1950s and Maori don’t role over and accept this crap any more.
http://tvnz.co.nz/seven-sharp/absentee-mp-s-video-5813260
I agree,
It now seems Mana have gone into damage control, their facebook page flooded with the issue in retreat when they could of attacked.
John Key is going to knock Mana every chance he gets, this will only be the beginning. He wants the Maori party to get the votes not Mana.
Mana will need something more substantial than John key has been out of parliament a lot also, that’s apples and oranges, one is the PM… one is a minor party leader of the opposition, of course the PM is going to be out of parliament a lot, it’s the nature of the job.
“differentiated himself from key who is a multi-millionaire attacking the elected rep of the electorate with voters on the lowest income in NZ. Why would Key attack their advocate? It’s against the Kiwi ‘fair go”
that right there is the way to attack.
Don’t forget John Banks. After Hone gave a great speech yesterday, John Banks gets up and basically says that Hone doesn’t know anything about poverty or how to address it properly – apparently all you need is ‘unconditional love.’
It’s obvious that the National led govt. will continue to discredit Mana this year. The only reason the Maori Party aren’t overtly on Hone’s back is because they’re trying to play the safe card in case Labour wins the elections. Thus National-Act-United Future-Conservatives (and probably NZ First) will attack the credibility of the Greens, Mana, and Left leaning kaupapa this election year.
Labour needs to sort out its intra-politics as well as its lurch to the centre. If the Labour-Greens-Mana bloc don’t work together, utilize MMP politics, and creatively defend against National’s attacks, they will give Key another term
I totally agree. Something that really pissed me off last night on the MSM, was watching that freak Mike Hoskings interview Hone. It didn’t border on racist, it crossed the line fully. Reminded me of that disgusting 1960’s racism that was presented as humour, as if that would disguise it. Off-topic I see DonKey suddenly thinks referendums ARE worthy of a listen. What a desperate and obvious attempt at stealing thunder, national have a whiff of nasty desperation about them.
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