The Meka defection: Winners, Losers and Predictions
It is a shockwave still reverberating around NZ politics and it will help form the next Labour led Government or create a backlash that sees National and ACT get elected.
There are many political winners and losers.
WINNERS:
Māori Party – A brilliant coup timed with the mischief only JT can pull. The Māori Party now have a Cabinet Minister ready candidate and JT is pushing the brand excellently. The momentum is with them alongside the Roy Morgan 4.5%.
Nanaia – With Meka crossing the Rubicon first, all eyes are on her to see if she will jump waka next. Her not telling the Cabinet about what was in 3 Waters hasn’t left her many friends.
Dr Kerekere – The Greens won’t take her call, but the Māori Party might. The Māori Party would be mad to accept her, there’s a reason the Greens are frightened of her.
Shane Jones – With the reality of a Labour led minority Government with Greens in support and the Māori Party providing confidence and supply becoming more of a possibility, watch as the big money start donating to NZ First (something that is already happening) and pressure comes on National to cut an Epsom cup of tea deal in Northland for Shane.
LOSERS:
Meka – It just seems all very self interested to voters. Meka was overlooked for promotion in favour of Willow Jean Prime and that always tends to make women of a certain age getting replaced very angry. Yes it’s smart politics, yes it gives the Māori Party advantage, but all at the cost of lot of her mana. She should call Willie and say sorry.
Parekura Horomia – That sound you hear is the great oracle of the East rolling in his grave. Parekura was staunch, staunch, staunch loyal when it came to Labour and watching his protege walk away from Labour would be a grim moment for him and his legacy.
Opposition – They are left bitching about whether the letter sent to the Speaker triggered the Waka jumping legislation like idiots arguing over a horse after the horse has bolted. Only beltway anorak wearing nerds care.
PREDICTIONS:
The management of this is a political test to the electorate over how Labour and the Māori Party can work together.
If it descends into recriminations and factional fighting we are seeing in the Greens, it will be the kiss of death at the election.
It is vital that dignity and mana dictate the response or else the media will seize on any shade throwing as the end of NZ democracy.
Solidarity and the ability to work together is where it matters now because a National/ACT Government intend to make enormous cuts in essential community infrastructure that will damage all the values both Labour and the Māori Party stand for.
This is a political test, managed correctly it will show the electorate there is nothing to fear from a Labour led Government with supply and confidence from the Māori Party.
Managed poorly and we hand ammunition to the Right.
If this works, Willie Jackson’s relationship with JT will become essential and it will highlight Chippy’s rightful faith in him as a senior Cabinet Minister.
For voters, a Labour led minority Green Government with supply and confidence with the Māori Party could generate the most economically progressive social policy change this country has seen since Michael Savage!
If ACT and National get in, however we will face the most right wing Government since David Lange.
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Martyn you miss the point about the opposition questioning this. It was Labour that brought in this legislation and now they have been shown that when it should have been triggered, they and their pet speaker have rorted the rules to their own end. This is not missed by a public getting more tired of this governments excesses while their standard of living declines at a rapid rate.
Wrong wrong. It was a NZ First policy crumb to get into government.
That’s why Winnie is very quiet. Shows he can’t draft a decent law even with all his ” experience”
A vote for him is a vote for Natacts. God help us.
Nothing was triggered except National party voters – maybe you need to take your concerns to the National Party and tell them you are not impressed with the way they handled Jamie Lee Ross’ departure.
Jamie Lee Ross salicious crumb
OMG I am in Te Pati Maori – a pakeha that I am – and absolutely they do not need the the parakeet and I am sure they just wouldn’t do that, they know she is A PAIN IN THE ARSE!
There is zero chance of Nanaia defecting. She is way too deeply embedded at the highest levels of the Labour Party. A senior Cabinet Minister and a parliamentary member of Labour for 27 years. Also she looks at the world quite differently to Meka. She is not a Māori Party sovereigntist, but rather is at the forefront of biculturalism in the sense of a unified nation.
If we have to have the most right wing government since David Lange in order to cauterize and castrate the greens and labour who have everything coming to them, then so be it.
Labour need to spend time in the wilderness and take a good hard look at themselves and come back as advocates for workers and drop the woke virtue signaling nonsense.
Totally agree! I voted for Greens/Values once then Labour for three decades but I can’t see myself voting for Labour ever again. The “woke virtual signalling stuff” at the expense of the working class/small business class advocacy has lost me. Even Labour’s take on things Maori is skewed IMO and I’m of Maori descent. I long for real Maori leaders like Ngata, Paewai etc. of old not self interested frauds like Whaitiri who has let Parekura, her mentor and his forbears down.
If Labour lose the Maori seats to TPM, they will not get them back again.
That’s my thoughts anyway.
They said that after they near all went to Nz first as well , but they did go back
I do not understand why The Maori Party or the Greens lean the Labour as it treats them both with contempt. The treatment of the Maori King in London by ex Labour minister Palmer is a discrace .Surely someone in Chris Hipkins party was given a timetable of events for the ceremony and seen no space was allowed for an acknowledgement of the Kings presence. It shows the true feeling of Maori in the thinking of this party that is supposed have their back .
As I read this article, I find that there isn’t much in there that I would disagree with, or label as misleading, or partisan in it’s presentation of the realities faced by the various parties in the parliament…
What I am finding rather disquieting, verging on outright horror, are the utterly juvenile, ignorant, and the arrogantly bigoted drivel that passes for “political debate” in the comments section of practically every post written on NZ blogs “en masse”….
Having spent the majority of my time playing the blues everywhere but here, I come home in time to be trapped here by the lockdown, and haven’t I regretted it since!! I came back to find what used to be a country I could be proud of, turned into the largest daycare center for intellectual/emotional cripples I have ever seen..
I now have no choice but to accept that NZ has been stripped of it’s intellectual/philosophical foundation, and has been replaced with scratchy tape of circus music.. Such is how debased NZ’s intellectual/philisophical base has become.. What used to be regarded as poorly educated mediocrities are now the “smart ones”.. and every body else is too busy amusing themselves, or accumulating wealth at an insane level of greed to give even the tiniest fuck for what they are setting NZ up for.. They will probably be the ones putting up bunting to welcome the invaders once our power mad northern “friends” decide it’s time to “take out the gooks”… The Irish are extremely grateful to NZ for taking the heat off them for being the thickest people on Earth BTW..
Winners at the next election, the new coalition government of Labour, Greens and TPM parties.
The losers (as they always have been and will remain to be) National and Act.