Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Hone Harawira
,
Internet Party
,
Kim Dotcom
,
Mana Party
,
Principles
It's the beginning of the end of the Mana Party, and they can't say they weren't warned; the Herald on Sunday reports:
Hone Harawira and Kim Dotcom have taken the next step in their slow dance, after Mana Party members agreed late last night to move forward in negotiations with the Internet Party.
The Mana Party has given its leaders a month to negotiate, before they put any proposed alliance out to the party's local branches for consultation.
Dotcom put his case to about 200 Mana members gathered for their annual meeting at Rotorua's lakeside Mataikotare Marae yesterday.
The internet tycoon and his entourage arrived at the Mana annual meeting in large Porsche and Mercedes SUVs but he pulled out all the stops to convince Mana of his working-class credentials.
He had spent the journey down from his Coatesville mansion being briefed by a Ngati Whatua kaumatua on marae protocol and the Treaty of Waitangi.
The German millionaire and alleged internet pirate spoke of his impoverished terror-stricken childhood as the son of an alcoholic father.
Having grown up poor he was committed to Mana's core principles of tackling poverty.
"I'm all for the betterment of Maori, I'm all for social justice. Just because I live in a big flash house doesn't mean I don't care about people who are disadvantaged."
Dotcom also laid out his vision of how technology could help the Mana Party engage with voters and could alleviate poverty.
"I was in a low social situation. Technology has helped me to become an entrepreneur and to become successful so why shouldn't that be replicated for young people in New Zealand who are not living in the big cities and are disadvantaged right now?"
Mana Party leader Hone Harawira told reporters Dotcom "did extremely well".
Kim Dotcom is full of it. He didn't "care about people who are disadvantaged" when he left creditors and staff unpaid for two years. Some of those staff remain unpaid, and Dotcom is now being sued by them. He didn't "care about people who are disadvantaged" when he conspired to rip off the creators of original content by paying people to steal it then upload it to his "data storage locker".
Hone Harawira and some of his Mana Party colleagues can't see past the dollar signs in their eyes. Dotcom brings the kind of wealth and privilege they could only dream about, or so they think. They need to ponder Alex Mardikian's warning; "no one rides for free with Kim".
If the Mana Party goes ahead with its alliance with Dotcom, it will have abandoned the "principles" on which the party was formed. It is heading for dog tucker territory.
