It took 22 years of hard work and tough negotiation to achieve this milestone and good on the Maori Party if they managed to speed up the National Government and get the Declaration signed.

It has been quite weird watching Labour attacking National and National playing with words,  but the most useful comments came from Moana Jackson on “Native Affairs”. He said that the DRIP signing is another tool in the tool box available to all of us fighting for constitutional change based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and for indigenous rights.

There may no obvious binding legal obligations which will alter New Zealand domestic law today but there is a sense that the complacent dominant culture will be pressured by a fresh moral imperative to recognise indigenous rights.

Interestingl,y the United States is now muttering about signing and they are the last taxi to leave the colonial ranks on this issue.

The Green Party has held a consistent position on this issue and as my taxi driver from Tuwharetoa said to me today “The Green Party is the conscience of the nation” . We were talking about mining, the Declaration and the problems with Treaty settlements and as usual it was a better conversation than watching Jim Anderton and Rodney Hide reciting the myths of the monocultural dinosaurs.

Kia kaha to the those rangatira who built this path to a better future.

[For the political junkies, Labour have voted with National 12 times at first readings, and 16 times at third readings, since the start of this term of Parliament. For the Maori Party it's 13 and 17. For the Greens it's 0 and 1.]

Yesterday, Labour voted with the Government again on a Bill that everyone except the Greens supported – the Education Amendment Bill.

We opposed this supposedly “technical” Bill because it included clauses to facilitate corporate control of school boards. In doing so, we seem to be the only ones consistently opposing privatisation in the education system.

The Maori Party did express concern about these aspects of the Bill but they still voted for it.

It’s fascinating, because if you just read the Regulatory Impact Statement which describes the Bill it would seem to be just about police vetting of school tradespeople and registration issues for teachers. Actually, like most legislation there is always fine-print to examine.

This Education Amendment Bill continues a trend towards corporate control by allowing corporates to be statutory managers of schools. It also allows the combining of school boards, potentially disenfranchising local communities.

The Quality Public Education Coalition (QPEC) was one of the small number of submitters against this Bill who saw its potential to further undermine public schools. QPEC has the experience and the capacity to step back and analyse the bigger picture.

With their support, we are prepared to be a lone voice in Parliament to at least make sure there is opposition to any form of privatisation on the public record.

Schools are not businesses to be managed efficiently in order to produce more labour for the market. Schools are communities, and as communities in partnership with the state they need the ability to run their own affairs and proper resources. We don’t need Pepsi Cola High School being managed by a firm of corporate auditors whose bottom line is profit.

He starts with a criticism of Hone, he attacks the Maori Party, he promotes unjust treaty settlements and he defends the discriminatory foreshore legislation. And all delivered to a predominately Pakeha audience. How could whanau and iwi and those on the progressive left respond in any other way but with severe criticism? What exactly was the message here, who was he really talking to and about what?

I personally struggle as to what it is I am most disappointed about in his speech.

Lets take the foreshore. Goff said, in defending legislation considered by many whanau, hapu and Pakeha to be indefensible:

But for all the criticism I have heard, most people accept that the current foreshore and seabed rules aren’t broken and they’re a good foundation for moving forward. They believe it’s good legislation for all New Zealanders….It’s hard to see why the country should be put through all the grief just to put a new brand on law that’s working…. If the foreshore and seabed issue is left for the courts to resolve, we could be tied up in knots for years. The government has a choice between sticking with the status quo, which guarantees access but allows for agreements around customary rights, and the alternative of never ending court battles….National wants to reopen the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Labour asks: What isn’t working? Will reopening court action help or would it see wounds fester?

Labour has never understood the impact of their utter rejection of Maori over the Foreshore. They have never understood the seriousness of slamming the door in the face of whanau and hapü over the issue. Because that was who really paid the price – the small coastal iwi and hapü who would never have the resources to fight or to lobby or negotiate.

Goff claims in his speech that the legislation is working because Ngati Porou did a deal with Labour under it, but what about Aitanga a Hauiti, who lost their treaty rights to their coastal rohe? Labour’s foreshore legislation picked the “large Maori corporates” as the winners and shut out the smaller iwi. Coincidentally, Goff also levelled this same criticism at National and the Maori Party in his speech:

Instead, it’s just done a deal to advantage some large Maori corporates, which other forestry companies do not get from the government, which will give the Maori corporates an estimated $1.75 billion. Let’s be clear. This deal will not benefit Maori as a whole.

I agree that the ETS deal won’t benefit whanau, but it’s completely inconsistent to then say the foreshore legislation was good because big iwi like Ngati Porou could benefit. Pot calling the kettle black.

The disloyalty by Labour to these smaller iwi was severe. It takes real leadership to say you got it wrong. Cullen’s, somewhat conditional back track on the foreshore issue in April this year certainly did not go that far, but it opened the door just a crack, showing they at least recognised a failure of judgement even as they tried to justify it.

Cullen’s position gave Labour some wiggle room over future foreshore changes. It is highly unlikely that much of the Labour scheme will change even if the Nats repeal the existing law. Labour could claim both some success of their scheme with the voters they wooed with the original act, and win some Maori support through a dignified acknowledgement that change was necessary.

At best, I could say that maybe Goff was trying to do that with this speech on the foreshore as there is some recognition of the Cullen position in it:

Back in 2004, Labour’s process on dealing with the issue, in a different environment, could have been better…

But when read alongside the other criticisms it still just comes across as anti whanau, intended or not.

Labour will be frustrated that National will get credit for foreshore reform despite their racist and despicable 2005 anti Maori campaign. But that’s one of the costs of losing an election, hell, we’re all pissed at that.

But this frustration mustn’t distort the bigger picture here: the progressive left must rebuild links with the diverse communities who are suffering under this government and that includes whanau and hapu. Goff, for all his possible intentions to build a sense of ‘nationhood’ simply delivered to National a great wedge with which to divide us.

Eighty-two percent of National voters believe emitters should pay for any emissions in excess of New Zealand’s agreed limit under the Kyoto treaty, not taxpayers. Among Maori Party voters this rises to ninety-one percent. Voters of all types soundly reject the long phase-out of free credits and support more transparency around who is getting handouts.

Is it any wonder, given that the biggest change is that polluters will now be paid by the taxpayer not only for their current pollution, but for any increases for the next couple of hundred years. What a crock!

Nick Smith has made a real hash of his assault on ACC, picking on sexual abuse victims and baby boomer bikers. He’s also made a real hash of his ETS proposals, sucking up to business and kicking the taxpayer in the teeth for generations.

The only thing that remains to be seen is whether the Maori Party will support either of these debacles. It would be ironic if they provided their support in exchange for something they already have – kaitiakitanga  over the foreshore and seabed.

I’m planning to do a series of frogblog posts on National’s plans to gut ACC, highlighting the devastating impact of each of them on people who have been injured and their families.

But before I even got to post the first one, ACC Minister Nick Smith has revealed how badly National has politically managed their pernicious proposals.

Green MPs and staffers were all geared up today to oppose the Bill to implement the ACC cuts, which National had intended to introduce under Parliamentary urgency – a far too frequent and undemocratic tactic of theirs.  But when the Parliamentary Order Paper appeared, the Bill to gut ACC wasn’t on it.

The reason, as Radio New Zealand reports – National can’t get the numbers, even from their own support parties!

Act won’t vote for it because it doesn’t go far enough towards the privatisation they want, and the Maori Party won’t vote for it because they have some serious concerns about the unfairness of aspects of it – particularly to those in their voter base.

So, who knows when the Bill will surface in Parliament.

As suggested at The Standard, National fudge the numbers for the ACC accounts so they can claim a “blow out” to justify their cuts, but they didn’t even bother to ensure they can get the numbers in Parliament to pass their legislation through its First Reading.

Anyway, I’m a somewhat more relaxed frog now than I was this morning, because, thanks to National making such a mess of it, I have a bit more time for getting the nasty detail of this pernicious Bill out to frogblog readers.

Watch this space – there is plenty more to come on National’s plans to gut ACC.

• Go to: Gutting ACC – it’s just not fair: Vocational independence
• Go to: Gutting ACC – it’s just not fair: Hearing loss
• Go to: Gutting ACC – it’s just not fair: Sexual abuse claims

Raising benefits is the correct way to compensate for higher prices, rather than the Government’s proposal for a three year transition where the energy and transport sectors only have to purchase one tonne of emissions units for very two tonnes emitted by their products, effectively halving the price from $25/tonne to $12.50. A rise in the core benefit would achieve two things:

• it would give financial relief to the households who most need it, without subsidising those who don’t;
• it would not dilute the price signal  that makes it worth while to save energy and fuel.

So beneficiaries could take their higher benefit and use it to purchase more efficient appliances or vehicles in order to reduce fuel and power costs permanently.

It is not clear from the Government’s announcements so far whether the family assistance measures negotiated  between the Greens and the Labour Party as part of the 2008 ETS legislation will be allowed to stand. First, the billion dollar home insulation fund which is in the legislation but may be repealed by National’s bill, was to have offered 100% subsidy for low income households and a lesser subsidy for those who could have afforded to put up some of the money, and none for those on the highest incomes. When we worked with National to reinstate the scheme, it was a bottom line for them to have no income cap, so 100% funding for poor families was not affordable.

It was also part of the agreement last year, though not implemented through legislation, that every household would get a one-off payment in compensation for the higher power prices, and the CPI based benefit adjustment would occur in advance rather than in arrears. Those changes were to cost $180m but may not survive.

We argued with Labour for a general benefit rise last year, and failed. National should reconsider it this year.

The fact that New Zealand is doing business with a country ruled by one of the vilest regimes on earth is not however newsworthy – after all the overarching mantra of free trade can allow us to do business and glad hand anyone.

What is newsworthy apparently is if some in the Maori Party decide that after three years of New Zealand achieving little in Fiji with the diplomatic equivalent of a big stick – ‘hey lets go and see for ourselves and have a chat to our Pacific brethren’.

This approach of going to see what the situation is perhaps seeing if there is anyway of advancing the slow moving and jaded progress of Fijian democracy is causing many in the media to work themselves into a right old lather. I reckon they should chill out and perhaps take a few tips from ‘our Keith’.

A week or so back Keith was calling for the United Nation’s to stop using peacekeepers from Fiji, and he also supported Fiji being suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum. This is because Keith opposes military rulers  that censor the news and seem intent on dragging out the prospect of elections. However, he also supports Hone going to Fiji to talk to the political players – even the Big Man.

The consequences of not engaging could be pretty grim. A couple of week’s a blog war broke out (and no-one wins a blog war!) between No Right Turn and Gordon Campbell over the vexed issue of Fiji.

Gordon was saying that “our current diplomatic policy is only likely to push Bainimarama further into isolation, and further towards a closer alliance with China, thus providing China with a military and economic ally right on our doorstep.”

China isn’t exactly a paragon of democracy and there are no free and fair elections planned in China anytime soon, but for some reason (Free Trade perhaps?) our Prime Ministers such as Helen Clark and John Key love glad handing in Beijing.

So maybe Keith may have a wee mosey in the sun and see for himself what the situation on the ground is – he won’t be going to get a sun-tan or glad handing dictators but rather to make the best of a bad situation. He’s done “non-government” diplomacy trips before – to Sri Lanka (2003), West Papua (2005) and Tonga (2006). Keith’s philosophy is that every bit helps.

Foreign Affairs is a million shades of grey and you never win with just one approach.

Labour has made a meal out of critiquing the Maori Party for their agreement with National, notwithstanding Labour’s own utter rejection of the Maori Party in 2005. Labour’s dismal failure to take heed of its own Maori MP’s over the foreshore and seabed issue came back to bite them in the proverbial and only has itself to blame for the emergence of the Maori Party as a political force in opposition to Labour.

Funnily enough, Labour has since the election a new found enthusiasm for defending Maori, noticeably absent for many years now. So, given Labour’s hue and cry over the effect of National’s policy on Maori, why werent they at this hui to support Maori representation on the Auckland council? What is their position? Its a bit of a mystery.

According the 2006 census, nearly 25% of the Maori population live in the Auckland region. John Key has made much of his hongi with iwi leaders, meanwhile the greatest population of Maori in the country with the least representation, most dispossessed and most impoverished get nothing but the finger.

There has only been one elected Maori councillor since 1989 – that is, in the last twenty years. And before that Sandra Lee was the sole Maori voice for a number of years. Its clear that it is extremely difficult for Maori to get access to the decision-making table. And I also understand that the Auckland City council has in the last 18 months twice refused to even entertain the idea of holding a referendum on whether there should be Maori seats. If the council won’t even allow the city to consider it, what chance do Maori have of ever having adequate representation on a super council?

Now the Royal Commission was not at all generous in suggesting 3 Maori seats, so the removal of them by the Iwi/Kiwi National Party is particularly mean – though not at all unexpected. The next question is how the Maori Party will deal with this given their agreement with National that:

The relationship between the Maori Party and the National Party will be one of good faith and no surprises.
Both the National Party and the Maori Party will act in accordance with te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi.

Despite the lauded political deals National might have done they nonetheless retain the 19th century arrogance of dispensing their largesse to Maori, tightly controlled and kept in their place.

The Prime Minister did a good imitation of saying nothing definite and implying that the Declaration was more or less just an aspirational text. He said they would watch to see what caveats’ the Aussies put on supporting the Declaration before they made a decision.

It may be that the Declaration is highly symbolic rather than an internal programme of action for Aotearoa/New Zealand, but the greatest symbolism is in who refuses to sign it.

It does raise the issue of why is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is being called aspirational!? Are the rights of women, people with disabilities, children etc merely aspirational or does this only apply to the Declaration on indigenous rights? If so why ??

As of this week only USA, Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand are refusing to support the Declaration. 144 countries have signed on to it and 11 have abstained while Australia has decided to show some support. The Green Party wants to know what the new Government here intends to do on this issue. After today’s display of prevarication I am not holding my breath. The key issue is that the UN Declaration acknowledges the collective self determination of indigenous peoples, which seems to have scared the hell out of both Labour and National.

Normally we would never advocate following Australia on issues of cultural justice, their record speaks for itself in all its genocidal brutality, but at least the Rudd Government has made a positive move. The UN Declaration has flaws and weaknesses but it does take a stand for indigenous collectivive self determination across the earth. 

We will just keep on asking our Prime Minister to join the ethical majority at the United Nations on this issue. After all his Government is in a Confidence and Supply agreement with a tangata whenua political party, doesn’t he owe them the recognition of their human rights?

John and Wikatana Popata ain’t angels – but then who is? But they do come from a whanau with a deep and abiding commitment to Kaupapa Maori. I have watched these boys grow to young men over the past ten years, and I’ve been impressed by the sincerity and the passion that they bring to the activities that they are involved in, for their marae, their hapu, their iwi, and for Maori people generally.

Sure, sometimes that passion spills over, and sometimes that leads to actions that society might frown upon, but with my record, who am I to criticise? I can recall with distinct clarity putting myself outside the norm and often outside the law to promote ideas and beliefs that we were passionate about when we were young (once upon a time!), and I don’t regret any of it – not for one second.

Labours Kelvin Davis responded in defence of the Prime Minister and with some high passion himself:

“His suggestion, reported in the media, that John Key should meet the pair is particularly farcical given what Hone has said. Does he expect John Key to tell them their actions were perfectly acceptable? What does Mr Key say to all this?”

Well actually, the process of restorative justice could be well be the most constructive response. Giving these young men, passionate about Treaty issues, the chance to talk with the Prime Minister about why their passions run so high and for John Key, the victim in this case, to set out how such violence affects him and his family. His wife and kids would have seen the footage on TV and it was frightening. This is what restorative justice was designed for – to move from hysterical cries for punishment to understanding and restored relationships between victim and offender. It works for much of the rest of the country; it could work here, if the victim wants to proceed that way.

Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples, responding as Maori Party co-leaders but strangely under the banner of the NZ Government, distanced themselves from Hone’s work with his own people, citing the separation of powers and due process:

But our party is also centred on the commitment to respecting due process to the law – it was, after all, the fundamental breach of that process around the foreshore and seabed shame, that motivated so many of us to speak up in the cause of justice. We are also mindful of the doctrine of the separation of powers – which instructs any politician against any actions which could be construed as interfering in the course of law” said Mrs Turia.

Maybe they received some advice from government to distance themselves from Hone but why take it? They owe National nothing. Hone has described the real life complexity of such actions in political circumstances. He is standing up for his community and there is no shame in that. His co-leaders should be standing up for him too.

“Our people continue to go to prison, and many of them have spent a long time not functioning well in society. They need the opportunity to have their mauri ora and mana restored. No one is going to do that in a public prison. Mrs Turia was emphatic: “Absolutely, we are not in this to make money. I am a firm believer in redemption.” She said there were huge contributing factors to offenders being victimised: 90 percent of women in prison had been sexually abused.

“Our people have been deeply affected by the inequalities of the system, and the current system does not address the reasons that people go to prison. She said this was not about rehabilitation but habilitation: “Let us be our own solution. We are better able to restore [offenders'] mana and mauri ora.”

But supporting profiteering isnt necessary to achieve that. In fact it will make it much much worse.

Private prison management is not the key to this change – government policy is. As insiders with the Government the Maori Party and its Ministers should be fighting to change the Corrections Department to require Maori in the management, design and programs of prisons – while fighting to keep unscrupulous, American corporations from profiteering from our community’s colonised misery.

This is the harder road, that’s true. It will require fighting National on a key right wing platform. But is a true test of the mettle of the Maori Party – fighting for Maori while in Government with the Nats. Private profiteering provides no protection for Maori and incentivises a massive increase in prison population by use of the full range of racist filters in the system. Having Maori managers of a prison at the end of a systemic and economic policy program specifically designed to put our people in jail is pointless.

How can they protect our people if the Maori Party supports the economic levers that puts them there in the first place?

Our people need protection from the abuse of state force and from private power too. Our people deserve better.

I heard the Maori Party clearly state that they wanted the bill to be repealed and their hope, expectation even, that the review would result in that. I heard John Key leave the door open but not make any promises. There was also reference to Tariana’s repeal bill and mention of her having resigned her ministerial position and leaving Labour over it.

I couldn’t help but wonder why no-one asked the question: “If National does not repeal the Act, will you relinquish your ministerial posts as you did before?” It is a tough question but needed to be asked.

The Maori Party is an exceptional political advocate for kaupapa Maori. But the Act is the Maori Party’s raison d’être. Anything less than a repeal (with a sop to public access) will give them serious credibility headaches. Could Pita and Tariana really stay on as Ministers with anything less than repeal and still be the principled MPs that they are?

The National Party will also be feeling the pressure. What if they were to lose the Maori Party from their government? They don’t need the Maori Party for votes, but they do for credibility.

The Nats are promoting themselves as able to work across the political spectrum, trying to woo Maori. They are purposefully looking quite different from the “last cab of the rank”, the much more defensive previous Labour Government. The Maori Party is critical to this image.

I hope that the Maori Party is seriously considering abandoning its ministerial posts if the outcome is a white wash and I hope they have said as much to National.

I can understand that they could not secure a promise to repeal the Act when they signed up to Government. They didn’t have the clout then.

But as more time passes, National is investing more and more of their future political credibility in the apparent stability and management of diverse political interests. They will not want to have the happy lovefest ruined only a year into Government. The Maori Party is at its strongest over this period of the review, if they remain willing to talk and willing to walk away. We could see the back of this legislation if they flex that muscle. I sincerely hope they do.

The Maori Party agree to be bound by collective responsibility in relation to their Ministerial portfolios and their Associate Minister responsibilities. When the Maori Party Ministers speak about issues within their portfolios and Associate Minister responsibilities, they will speak for the government and as part of the government, representing the government’s position in relation to these responsibilities. When they speak about matters outside these responsibilities, however, they speak as the Co-Leaders of the Maori Party or as members of Parliament.

compare this with the collective responsibility clause in the Green-Labour agreement from the last term of government (admittedly not a governing agreement):

The Green Party will not be bound by collective responsibility on government decisions. Where the Green Party has participated in the development of a policy initiative, and that participation has led to an agreed position, it is expected that all parties to this agreement will publicly support the process and the outcome.

Turia and Sharples are ministers of Maori affairs and the community and voluntary sector.  But they are also associate ministers of education, corrections, health and social development and employment. Those are some of the biggest ministries in New Zealand.  Although Turia and Sharples will be sitting outside cabinet they and their party could end up being bound to be collectively responsible for a very significant proportion of the government’s work.

This could work two ways.  Either the Maori Party could use its associate minister portfolios to blunt or even improve the Act-National agenda for these big money portfolios.  Or it could find itself either a lone voice at the table or, worse, excluded from important cabinet table discussions altogether and yet effectively muzzled from criticising the decisions that Cabinet is making.

There would be no votes at the hui, but if more than 50 percent of people spoke against then that would be message to the MPs, Mrs Turia said.

It’s a risky form of consultation and indicates a possible cultural difference between the Greens and the Maori Party.  While Greens also span the entire spectrum from avid National supporters to ‘not over my dead body’, there are very few Greens along that entire spectrum who would accept a deal where they could not see many of the details, and were given only an hour to decide.

Oh to be a fly on the wall of some of those ‘trust us’ hui. The first one apparently went well for the Maori Party with strong support for the deal.

Metiria noted yesterday that the Maori Party could play a crucial role moderating an ACT influenced government, but it needs to focus on important economic issues in deal around housing and jobs. 

Maori families and workers have the most to lose through weakened employment rights and housing insecurity. An environment which fosters Maori business is essential, but this election Maori voters showed a strong desire to protect employment rights and housing security as well.

We were very disappointed to think that in Ikaroa Rawhiti and in the Hauraki Waikato the people there couldn’t see beyond the immediate.  They could have voted the other way and they would have had four members in but they chose to keep all their eggs in that basket.  And of course we know now that they’re in opposition.

Turia spent most of the campaign telling lambasting the Greens for suggesting that voters in Maori electorates should vote strategically.  Of course our strategic voting suggestion was based on more closely shared policy platforms than between the Maori Party and Labour, as this chart at No Right Turn suggests.

As it turns out the Greens increased our raw vote in the Maori electorates slightly despite overall turnout in those electorates falling significantly from the last election.

‘Not hot, but maybe globally warm.’

Nine year old Aotea Parata who stars with Aila Morgan-Guthrie on the Green Party billboard of the tyre swing talking about whether he’ll be voting Maori Party or Green Party (or something different):

 ’Just wait until I’m nine years older.’

And Morning Report’s Nadine Chalmers-Ross reporting that Rodney Hide thinks his party’s use of Aila in its television ads is:

‘meant to be a bit of fun.’

I agree Rodney.  It was meant to be.  So in that spirit here another in our lookalike series.

Say what you like about the Greens, but you can’t question their integrity. The party diligently assessed Labour and National against 12 criteria before pronouncing it shared more common ground with Labour. And there’s no way they’ll go back on their word.

And then draws an interesting contrast:

The Maori Party, contrary to the Greens, is keeping all its coalition options on the table. But by doing so, it’s embarking on a much more perilous path that could see it alienating its constituency if its hunger for power and influence comes at the expense of its core values.

I’ve argued before that strategically there is value to Maori electorate voters voting for the Maori Party candidate but the Green Party with their list vote, given the likelihood that party votes for the Maori party will be wasted, and the Greens are the party with the voting record most similar to the Maori Party over the last three years.

That issue suddenly becomes sharper now with, many Maori Party supporters not wanting to give their vote to a National government. They can still have the Maori Party in parliament, potentially winning all seven Maori electorate seats.  But they use their party vote to support the parliamentary party that opposed the Seabed and Foreshore Bill as a breach of tino rangatiratanga, wants to protect the Maori seats,  and protected te Tiriti o Waitangi from being removed from the school curriculum.  And won’t support a National government.

But what the Greens are calling for, is for Maori roll voters to vote in such a way to ensure over-hang, to gain parties of the left more seats in Parliament than their party vote entitles them to.

I should just quickly point out that I am not the Greens and don’t speak on the Green Party’s behalf, and that neither the Maori nor Green Party would define themselves primarily as on the left.  But, I think Farrar is right that an overhang is a distortion of our proportional voting system.  Although I would not go so far as to argue:

So the consequences of what the Greens are trying to do are severe. They are not only trying to frustrate the will of the voters, but they endanger MMP. For let me tell you that if they actually succeeded with their plan, and engineered a deliberate over-hang which changed the election result, the backlash would be nasty and massive.

At the time I wrote the post it was as a Green leaning voter articulating a reason why more people should consider giving their party vote to the Green Party.  The reason I gave was a tactical one rather than a policy one.  Having thought about it, I’m still not convinced this is manipulative. Or, at least no more than Rodney Hide telling National-leaning Epsom voters that they can have ‘two for the price of one’.  (And in 1999 Hide’s predecessor Richard Prebble in Wellington Central, and Jeanette Fitzsimons in Coromandel both also got in due at least in part to some voters thinking ‘two for one’).

I think there is an ethical difference between trying to convince another party’s voters (to the extent that any party can ‘own’ voters) to vote for you, and deliberately splitting your own party’s votes in such a way as to manipulate an overhang.

The key difference in my mind is that the Greens have no idea how the Maori Party is likely to vote on any issues in the next three years.  Indeed it is possible that the Greens and the Maori Party could end up on opposite sides of the house after post-election negotiations have concluded.  Although the parties have some core issues in common neither the Maori Party nor the Greens have stated yet who they will work with after the election and it is not as clear as it might have seemed three years ago.

I think the point remains for Maori Party voters though that their party rather than their electorate vote is highly likely to be wasted if they vote for the Maori Party with it.  If they agree with that premise it’s not much of a step to then looking around to another party to give their party vote to; be that the Greens, National or another party.  Personally I think the logic points towards the Greens.  I’m not convinced that would be a rort, otherwise everyone should be required to vote the same way with their party and electorate vote.

I was about to note that every party’s single job is to collect as much party vote as possible, but then realised that the Greens are the only parliamentary party for whom that is true as all other parliamentary parties will have an electorate vote component to their campaign as well, in some form or another.

The close parliamentary voting pattern between the two parties on a majority of common issues suggests this competition for votes has not soured an evolving political relationship.

The question that Maori voters are asking though is that if the Maori party wins 6 electorate seats (it thinks it can win seven) is it worth also giving a party vote to the Maori Party? Last election each seat in Parliament was worth about 20,000 votes. So the answer is yes, a party vote for the Maori Party can deliver another parliamentary seat but only if there are about another 140,000 votes to go with it and help it climb above the seat overhang the Maori Party is expected to have. In other words, Maori voters who are leaning towards the Maori Party would need to give 7 times as many votes to the Maori Party to get one seat in parliament as they would to the Green Party. It’s important to remember that the Green Party has voted with the Maori Party in Parliament this term more than any other party in Parliament, including supporting it on core issues like the Seabed and Foreshore.

I think it is mistaken to describe this tactical debate between the Maori Party and the Greens as either ‘war’ or ‘peevishness’ as Young does. Young is right that the Maori Party needs to grow its party vote if it is to expand it’s independence. But Maori voters also recognise this is a balancing act and that they could also potentially gain interdependent, rather than independent, political power from voting for a strong negotiating block after the election if both parties maximise their collective results.