Wednesday, February 10, 2010



Hone breaches his party's agreement

A good spot by Graeme Edgeler in comments on Red Alert that Hone Harawira's bill to entrench the Maori seats violates the Maori Party's confidence & supply agreement with National [PDF]:

The National Party agrees it will not seek to remove the Maori seats without the consent of the Maori people. Accordingly, the Maori Party and the National Party will not be pursuing the entrenchment of the Maori seats in the current parliamentary term.
Instead, the issue was punted to a joint constitutional inquiry, which will be considering the matter this year.

According to Graeme:

Someone’s sending a message to someone. But is it Hone sending a message to the Maori Party? Or the Maori Party sending a message to National?
Its a very interesting question - and I'd love to learn the answer.

Update: And Hone says he entered the bill in the ballot by mistake. A Tui, perhaps?