It’s supposed to be a broad church, not a cross burning one – Labour’s tin ear towards the Maori Party and MANA
Andrew Little’s working class credentials on display.
I like Andrew Little, I think he will make an amazing Prime Minister once we gain a change of Government in September but his recent comments against the Māori Party and MANA suggest a tin ear. Kelvin Davis is also sounding a tad out of touch with all his current bluster.
Lecturing Māori on kaupapa māori politics is pretty dangerous ground for a Political Party that confiscated the entire seabed and foreshore.
From Labour’s perspective, the Māori Party’s desire to sit at the table with National means they are a threat and it’s a tactical position that has seen the Māori Party being accused by many Māori for being sell outs, but this election could end up creating a very different kind of Government.
After MANA and the Māori Party adopted the very strategy I’d suggested months ago, they are now in a position to make some genuine gains at the election, but those won’t mean a damned thing if they simply go back to National.
Currently National are re-iterating that it is still their policy to end the Māori electorates. For National their relationship with the Māori Party was always political camouflage so that the true spite of their welfare policies was tempered by their ‘we’ve got Māori mates’ veneer, so that table setting that the Māori Party have clung to means nothing right now.
Tariana Turia has made the current Māori Party Leadership promise that they won’t go with Labour, this promise has to be ignored or over ruled because there is no victory in gaining more political representation if no major party will work with them.
Right now sitting in front of the Māori Party is their out. The new CYFs legislation that will ignore placing a taken child back with Māori whanau has all the ingredients of a new stolen generation. National are hell bent on pushing the reforms through because their privatisation of CYFs requires outside agencies getting bonuses for removing and re-settling children as quickly as possible so the stats look good.
Currently CYFs do a shit job of finding other appropriate whanau and because many Māori would prefer drinking a bucket of cold vomit than have any contact with state agencies whom they see as abusive, racist and counter productive, many intentionally go off the radar so that they can’t be contacted.
National are trying to remedy this deep suspicion by simply removing the need to find them in the first place and just place any children they take into ‘care’ (remember many children are abused while in state ‘care’) with any family regardless of the cultural disorientation and dislocation that creates.
This is the Māori Party’s opportunity to break with National and publicly declare their preference to work with any new Government post the election for the best outcome of our most vulnerable children.
Meanwhile, Andrew Little needs to remember the enemy is the National Party, not indigenous political representation.
The Maori Party don’t seem to realise that National can easily dismiss them and go with NZ First. With liberal Key gone and a true-blue conservative now leading National, the token crumbs that the Maori Party have been thrown will diminish markedly (if there are any at all).
The Maori Party have ignored many people who should be their base over the past 8 years, and now the party supported have changed. Look at the nationalistic-conservative turn taken by the UK Tories – that’s what National can do, and probably will do.
I was surprised by Little’s attack on the Maori Party too. Why do that when the Maori Party could easily work with Labour…and Labour might need them. It seems Labour has turned nationalistic-conservative too. I wish Labour had a Corbyn or a Sanders…instead they’ve got a leader who triangulates Trump. Short sighted, and a wasted opportunity! I’m still yet to see where Little has shifted to a working class focus.
You seem to have missed the bit where Bomber said:
The Māori Party are about as likely to form a government with Labour in 2017 as the Greens are to form a government with National in 2017. Not a chance. Any Māori Party candidate who wins a seat in Sept is another seat won by National, which is why the Greens are giving Labour a clear run at the Māori seats.
In hindsight, it seems clear to me that the Māori Party is, and always was, a strategy by the NatACTS to form a cross-identity ruling class alliance with the Iwi Leaders Forum, and get control of the Māori seats it will never have any chance of winning on its own (which is why it keeps talking about abolishing them). The idea that the Māori Party could have swung to the left has been revealed as wishful thinking, and the idea they might still do so goes against all the evidence.
As for Hone’s capitulation, this is simply evidence of the scattering of the Mana Movement as a national organisation post-2014, and his retreat to doing whatever is in the interest of the Harawira movement. In 2014, a vote for Kelvin Davis was a vote for National. In 2017, a vote for Hone Harawira is a vote for National.
“As for Hone’s capitulation, this is simply evidence of the scattering of the Mana Movement as a national organisation post-2014, and his retreat to doing whatever is in the interest of the Harawira movement. In 2014, a vote for Kelvin Davis was a vote for National. In 2017, a vote for Hone Harawira is a vote for National.”
Yes, you seem to be right, in my view. Damned shocking, is it not?
Maybe Martyn Andrew has the medical condition called “Tinea” a (fungal infection) If in the ear it causes hearing loss so maybe that’s the problem.
The photo appears to be a desperate NZ beer advert, but fails to deliver, given the large stack of Beck’s on one side. While that is a German brand, it is brewed here and does not taste like the original.
But whoever took this photo did not do Labour’s leader and his company there any favours, it just looks so unconvincing, “cheap” and hopeless (even Mac’s is not what it once was).
Nz has seen housing crisis
starving kids
alarming poverty
grotesque water quality decline
but Maori party has lived it up like never before while their people experiance record poverty, hunger and drug dependence
pack of hungry hungry mongrels