0 Paddy Gower gets angry

3 News political editor Patrick Gower is angry, and he's telling the word about it. It's not John Key who has made him angry. Nor is it David Cunliffe, or the Greens, or even John Archibald Banks.

No; it's none of the above. So we'll let Gower himself tell you who he's angry with, and why:

The Hone-Dotcom-Laila political triangle is one of the dirtiest deals in New Zealand political history.

It is as dirty as National-Act in Epsom.

It is as dirty as the Key-Dunne deal in Ohariu.

Frankly, Lalia Harré made me feel sick today when she said "it's time for New Zealanders to take back MMP".

That's because Laila Harré is wrecking MMP.

Hone Harawira is wrecking MMP.

And Kim Dotcom is wrecking MMP.

They are using Harawira's seat and MMP's "coat-tail" rule to get a back-door entry into Parliament.

It is a rort.

It is a grubby deal, made all the worse by the fact Harawira holds the Te Tai Tokerau seat - a Maori seat.

The Maori seats are special. They have a unique constitutional role which is to give the Tangata Whenua a place of their own in the New Zealand Parliament.

The Maori seats have been hard fought for.

Never, ever was it envisaged they would be used as a back-door entry for a German millionaire to get his proxy into Parliament.

This will give those opposed to Maori seats ammunition to get rid of them.

Patrick Gower is dead right. Whether you support the Maori seats or not, they are special. They recognition that Maori are tangata whenua, although with the number of Maori now being elected either in General seats or via party lists, their days may well be numbered. As Gower notes, Harawira is making bullets for opponents of the Maori seats to fire at him.

Gower isn't done yet though; he continues, by following the money trail:

Sadly, the Internet Mana deal has diminished the mana of the Maori seats.

And even sadder too, this deal involves money.

Harawira wants Dotcom's money.

Annette Sykes wants Dotcom's money.

John Minto wants Dotcom's money.

They are all willing to pervert the MMP system for the sake of money and it is a venal deal.

Don't try and tell me Laila Harré cares deeply about the internet. She cares about getting into Parliament.

I have a lot of respect for Harawira, Sykes and Minto. They have spent their lives fighting for what they believe in - for points of principle.

But that respect has been tarnished.

They are obsessed by power, obsessed by money and will trample over the rights of New Zealand voters to get it.

This Internet Mana deal is so wrong.

We urge readers to check out Paddy Gower's whole piece. We haven't even mentioned the bit about Dotcom's motive for this whole messy sham; that would be a story on its own.

But we've saved the best quote until last:

So the list of MMP wreckers just gets longer - Key and his right-wing crew are joined by the Left.

Labour and the Greens are wreckers too. Both prepared to work with the Internet Mana Party lot because "it's within the rules".

The Labour-Greens criticism of Epsom etc was a lie - they only did it because they didn't have a deal of their own. Now they do and deals are okay.

David Cunliffe, Russel Norman and Metiria Turei are now as low as Key and Steven Joyce.

Labour and the Greens are now hypocrites.

No wonder people don't go and vote.

No wonder people get turned off politics.

Across the House, New Zealand's politicians of all colours should hang their heads in shame for sanctioning these grubby deals.

We don't necessarily blame the politicians. MMP has permitted this farce. We didn't vote for MMP in the referendum in the early 1990's, nor did we vote for its retention in 2011. MMP is a far-from-perfect system of democracy, and you can't really blame parties for exploiting the loopholes, given that we are stuck with MMP for the foreseeable future.

But let's not hear any whingeing from the Left about dirty deals from here on out. The Mana Party has sold its principles for a fistful of dollars, and Labour and the Greens have stood by and let it happened. Of course all those parties strongly supported MMP, so it can be argued they're getting hoist by their own petard.

The next round of polls will be interesting. We suspect this is going to end very badly for the political Left.

0 Emmerson on hood ornaments

Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson sees through the charade of Labour Party member, former Alliance MP, former Green Party staffer and trade unionist as leader of the wealthy Kim Dotcom's Internet Party:

This is a cartoon that is brilliant in its simplicity, and in its very pointed message. Well done Rod Emmerson.

0 Quote of the Day - 29 May 2014

The Dom-Post manages to send a strong message to David Cunliffe and Labour whilst barely naming them. Under the headline Immigrants aren't scapegoats the Dom-Post opines:

Immigrants are easy prey for political vultures. Demagogues can win votes by using foreigners as scapegoats, as has happened repeatedly in New Zealand's history. So the argument about the effect of immigration on housing could easily turn poisonous. It's important not to let that happen.
The Budget's big surprise was the revelation of a turn in the usual tide of migration. The outward flow has turned into a net inward movement, mainly because fewer Kiwis are moving to Australia. Now there is concern that the inflow will push up house prices.
Panic measures will not help with this problem, as Labour seemed to realise soon after pledging a cut in net immigration. Asked exactly how big the cut would be, Labour faltered and fudged.
Immigration flows cannot be turned off and on like a tap. The present trans-Tasman inflow could quite quickly reverse as the rebuilding of Christchurch reduces, our growth rate falls, and Australia's economy rebounds. Big cuts in immigrant numbers would then exacerbate the renewed outward flow.
The country is entitled to control immigration and there might be room for some temporary reduction in immigrants. This would have to be done carefully, together with other measures to control house prices, such as interest rate rises. The danger is that immigration will become a hot topic and governments will over-react.
The effects of a moral panic about immigration go much wider than the immediate issue of house prices. National's scapegoating of Pacific immigrants in the 1975 election caused great harm to race relations. It led directly to the dawn raids and an outpouring of repressed prejudice.
Winston Peters' anti-Asian campaigns in the 1996 and 2002 elections also caused unnecessary alarm. There is always a receptive audience for this kind of trouble-making, especially among the older, the frightened, and the bewildered.
All the loose talk about the "Asian invasion" and the predictions of racial trouble turned out to be hollow. Auckland now has a large Asian population, but there has been no bloodshed, no ethnic violence, no outbreaks of hatred. New Zealand has shown that it is on the whole a tolerant and welcoming society which copes well with change.
Immigration has, in fact, made the nation a more interesting and vibrant place, and this is probably a more cogent reason for liberal immigration policies than any strictly economic one. A major report last year by the OECD on immigration concluded that the effect on public finances of immigration is "small, generally not exceeding 0.5 per cent of GDP in either positive or negative terms". 

It's hard to disagree with the sentiments expressed here. Winston Peters' past xenophobic scaremongering has no place, and the signs that David Cunliffe is trying to out-Winston Winston are alarming. Helen Clark in particular would be disgusted at Cunliffe's recent anti-immigrant rhetoric.

If Labour loses significant support in places like South Auckland this election, it only has itself to blame. Leave the xenophobia to Mr Peters, who if nothing else has at least been consistently xenophobic, not a latter-day convert like Mr Cunliffe.

0 The Civilian's take on the Internet Party

Ben from the Civilian has been pretty quiet in the last few months as he prepares to launch his political party. But he must see the Internet Party as a threat to his slice of the satire market; he blogged this yesterday:

Following this afternoon’s revelation that former Alliance MP and Cabinet minister Laila Harré will be the leader of the newly-formed Internet Party, chief executive Vikram Kumar offered a public warning that – while many may be excited about the possibility – she would not be “quite how you remember her.”
“Obviously, at this time, everybody is very eager to see Laila at the head of our party, and so are we,” wrote Kumar in a statement issued to media late this afternoon. “But it is important that, prior to tomorrow’s announcement, we warn New Zealanders that Ms. Harré will not look exactly how you remember her.
“This is not to say that Laila is any different. Indeed, she is still the same principled, vivacious politician that we all know and respect. But it has been a long time since she was a minister in 2002, and she has put on a few extra kilos.
“Additionally, she is now German.”

Heh; we like the way that this is going, so let's read on some more:

A promotional video for the Internet Party featuring Harré has been leaked to Whale Oil’s Cameron Slater, who remains uncertain why people keep sending him things.
The video features Harré walking down a long corridor in Kim Dotcom’s Coatesville mansion, smiling as she approaches the camera.
“Hello kiwis,” she says in a thick German accent. “It’s me: Laila O’Hare. Kia piki te ora, and welcome to the Internet Party.
“Waea atu ki te Pirihimana. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to you today and announce that I will be the leader of this brand new political movement that New Zealand really needs.
“Together, I believe that we can create a strong and modern digital economy, expand the country’s internet connectivity, and put me, Leela O’Harry, in Parliament once again.
“Kī tōnu taku waka topaki i te tuna. I hope that you will join me.”
At one point during the video, Harré’s grey hair appears to fall from her head, whereupon she catches it and puts it back.
Asked about this part of the video, Kumar explained that Harré had been having “trouble with hair loss recently,” and suggested that it would be “insensitive” to question her further about it.
Today’s development comes just one week after Kumar himself developed a German accent and abruptly became white.

This is brilliant stuff from The Civilian. It reinforces the fact that, just as NZ First is a cult to Winston Peters' personality, so the Internet Party is all about Kim Dotcom.

Quite how a trade unionist and hard-Left activist fits alongside a wealthy convicted criminal who is alleged to treat both his staff and his creditors in an appalling manner is anyone's guess. But it provides fertile ground for cutting satire, and The Civilian has delivered.