Turia to retire
December 14th, 2012 at 9:00 am by David FarrarTracy Watkins at Stuff reports:
Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says she will step down at the next election.
Turia, who has signalled her intention to retire previously before changing her mind, said she would have spent 18 years in Parliament by the time she leaves in 2014.
The Maori Party said Turia had signalled her intention to leave early so it could prepare for her departure and put a succession plan in place.
“I have given it serious thought and have made the decision with my family not to seek re-election in 2014,” Turia said.
Her co-leader Pita Sharples said it would be a “huge change to lose my mate”.
Turia would not give up her roles as minister and co-leader in the interim.
Tariana is 68, so this is no surprise. She has had a remarkable transformation from the scary radical activist who helped occupy Moutoa Gardens, to an effective Minister of the Crown.
This poses three challenges for the Maori Party.
- They need to elect a female co-leader and get her into Parliament
- They need to ensure they have politically agile parliamentary leadership. Everyone loves Pita Sharples, but it is known that Tariana is the one who makes things happen. This probably puts some pressure on Flavell to become male co-leader at some stage. However changing both co-leaders at the same time is also a risk.
- They need to retain Te Tai Hauauru
I think Turia’s endorsement should be enough for them to retain Te Tai Hauauru in 2014, if they select a competent enough candidate. However by 2017 they’ll need to be able to retain it on their own.
Related posts:
- Turia says Sharples should stand aside for Flavell
- Will the Maori Party co-leaders stay on?
- Colin James gives Turia Politician of the Year
- Maori Party Leadership
December 14th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Not a day too early. Good riddance!
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:32 am
I hope she can persuade Winston to join her.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:35 am
lovely lady. sure she “cant wait for the browning of new zealand” and represents people based on the race but isnt she sweet.
she has also been a tireless campaigner for taxing the hell out of cigarettes.
CYA!
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:40 am
She is a nasty dark hearted woman. She has a big chip on her shoulder about being Maori and has done allot of damage to race relations in this country. She is one of the rotten apples from the Clark era.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:54 am
I don’t think that’s how she spells her surname, DPF.
[DPF: What are you on about?]
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:56 am
She appears to have led the Treaty claims process (/ industry??) on a similar path from ugly rag-tag lawless protests to a more constructive businesslike modus operandi at the same time… I suppose that’s got to be a plus for the country despite the amounts of money involved. And you don’t get unsupervised babies drowning in the fountain this way either.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:04 am
I always found it ironic that despite only being part-maori (her father was a US-serviceman) that she championed her maori ancestory to the exclusion of her father’s ancestry.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:06 am
Trust RRM to think her efforts are “constructive” and a “plus for the country”. Halfwit.
The fact is that her and her ilk have done enormous damage to Maori and race relations in NZ. What has always impressed me about her is the way she so openly exudes malice and bitterness, to a startling degree. In that regard, what you see is what you get, with Tariana.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Being outside the political establishment will allow her to be less diplomatic about her long-held agenda: maori sovereignty
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:34 am
LOL @ Ryan Sproull – I think I got that.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Another glorious day oblivious of Kea turds – thanks RIP!
Here is a Kakapo turd, just to balance the avian gut flora a little bit:
http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/__data/assets/image/0004/48271/kakapo_droppings.jpg
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
However we are not free of terminally self righteous bullshit
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
An ethnic advocate to retire and to be replaced by another ethnic advocate. Good for her though, she has done a good job for Maori and made no apology about being an ethnic advocate. Would be nice to have some more Pakeha advocating for Pakeha interests.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Ryan Sproull (5,295) Says:
December 14th, 2012 at 9:54 am
Turia to retire
I don’t think that’s how she spells her surname, DPF.
[DPF: What are you on about?]
——————
Very good but you made a spelling mistake Te Maori.
Turea te retire !
And DPF still hasn’t got it!
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Oh so did I and someone has stolen the edit.
Vote:Cuzy bro’s been around by any chance?
December 14th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Tu meke
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
I, for once, am happy to see the end of her trougher career.
Vote:A racist woman who achieved nothing in her very pedestrian existence.
December 14th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Nasty little piece of work..
Glad to see the back of the aging hobbit.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Much depends on whether her retention of her seat was attributable to her own charisma, her own strong stance against Labour’s admittedly ill-advised foreshore and seabed legislation and whether the latter is sufficiently able to mobilise Maori voters against Labour anymore. Arguably, given that the culpable legislation has now gone, the chief focus of Maori animosity is against state asset sales and the contingent issue of water rights.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Chris2: I am with you there…it’s almost like she had to make up for Mum sleeping with a US marine by becoming more Maori than Maori…
In person she is pleasant enough…but never had the courage to come right out and SAY the Waikato river deal (and countless other deals) was a precedent for others…she would just mutter it loud enough for us to hear, but not the Hansard reporters. When she was on the record, she would just smile sweetly and agree with whatever crap Finlayson and Key were feeding the House that day…
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
That would be incredibly racist.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
An example of a successful business women. How dare she. More of her type, whatever colour; less need for shit-for-brains ideas like reporting on female board ratios.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Only because they and the Greens have such a rule / preference. I really doubt it matters to many of their constituents. I can’t speak for Greenies but the many Maori I have met, worked alongside and count as family (through the mother of my children) are eminently sensible and practical people who are interested in things like competence and results, not abstract ideas like “gender balance”.
If Sharples is also thinking of going out to pasture they could simply replace both of them with a single, effective female or male leader.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Sly as they come.
A racist a trougher and a hate merchant.
Whose constant refrain over the whole 18 years has been “give me money taken from hard working NZers to spend on my bro friends and relatives”.
Like her co-leader Pita Sharples, unnecessarily brought into the fold of government by the patronizing and clueless John Key.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Many of the things she says are simply weird – http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0411/S00021.htm
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
What did Tariana Turia do before the last 18 years of sucking on the public tit?
Vote:I have no idea
December 14th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
She was a non-entity as it has been the case over the past 18 years. A forgettable individual.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Nice one Ryan Sproull!
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Everything that is wrong with Moaridom.
Vote:I don’t dislike Moari, I dislike the direction Moari are heading
December 14th, 2012 at 8:46 pm
What a mean-spirited bunch of arseholes you all are.
You are obviously so sedated by the lame low-expectation bunch of no-hopers who have been consistently promising you the earth and delivering an atlas for so long, when you encounter a politician who is committed to her constituency and prepared to fight for it, it sends you into a self-indignant froth.
Instead of castigating her for her dedication, you should be asking why your own political representatives are so fucking bone-idle that they have been sucking on the taxpayer teat, while effectively selling you down the river for the last fifty years.
Can you name one modern politician who would take a bullet for your constituency interests, like she has been prepared to for hers?
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
No. I didn’t think so.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:20 pm
@Lee C
Not that I criticised her dedication, but you’re absolutely right (though you’d be even righter if you were talking of Hone Harawira). In a Parliament in which the ‘major’ parties robustly defended the principles on which they were founded and the constitutencies they were formed to represent, Harawira, Turia and yes, even Winston would be seen as commonplace.
But in NZ, where everyone but the Maori parties and the Greens are rushing to balance on the head of that pin called “the centre” in the hope of sucking enough votes from either side to be chucked the keys to the BMWs and the Ministerial drinks cabinets for three years, they frighten the horses.
In a country where Peter Dunne is the epitome of political survival, any sign of strength is perceived as a marker of radicalism.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Tariana is actually one of the opposition politicians I admire. Jim Anderton is another.
Her steely determination in setting up the MP after Hulun so dastardly set her up taught Hulun a big lesson, I bet. Hulun severely underestimated not just a casual acquaintance but one of the people she had worked with for years. One of Hulun’s evil strengths is the ability to judge people and this was the only time I ever noticed that she made a grievous error. This is how she kept the caucus in such lockstep. In her first term, personally, I could palpably sense her iron grip on every single puppet string. In her second term she relaxed the strings but man, that was how Hulungrad got such traction. And Hulun got it wrong with Tariana.
I was initially concerned she may be something of a Harawira mould but while she possibly went through that stage at some point in her life perhaps even during the time she has been in Parliament, she is in my view, in no way anti-us.
She personifies the natural Maori inclusiveness (which is why we don’t have an Ireland or Korea) in that while she advocates for all things Maori, this is her job, but in so doing she hasn’t excluded “us.”
Well done Tariana and thank you for your kind, generous, effective and I hope lasting and continued contribution to the fabric of this country.
I for one have no problem in paying for your comfortable retirement for truly you deserve it since it pales by comparison to the value you have added, at the end of the day.
God bless.
Can you name one modern politician who would take a bullet for your constituency interests, like she has been prepared to for hers?
John Carter
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Seemingly none of her adoring fans here remember when she used her profile to try to bully Corrections into giving special priveleges to one of her ‘Bros’ who was banged up in jail for serious offences….
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
And as for referring to New Zealanders of European descent as merely “visitors to this country”..
Vote:Well as someone who has had relatives give their lives for New Zealand on the battlefield words cannot express my pure disgust at this vile,racist piece of ……
December 14th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
I am presuming you admire Jimbo for his years of troughing, his manipulating the system for Jim Andertons benefit and for plan old just being one of the biggest fucking mongrels ever to go into our House of Representatives.
If there is ever a list compiled of of the lowest pieces of shit to have MP after their names on letter head, Anderton is top five material all time. Odious doesn’t even come close to describing him Utter scum
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
Rex – Winston maybe once upon a time, but now a bauble-carrying tax-cash hoarding caricature of a superannuated, dropsical type that Barry Humphries might use for inspiration.
I think I have to agree about Harawira.
John Carter? I looked him up and had to smile.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
I think Anderton did a great job with the MED and with Kiwibank. He conceived both and executed them well. You can certainly argue against MED running the functions it does but if they didn’t do them someone else would have to. That’s what he saw as a gap and he filled it.
Of course whether MBIE performs well is not Anderton’s fault. Joyce’s merger has now changed MED from what he created so he can’t be blamed for what happens with them now.
Vote:December 14th, 2012 at 11:23 pm
I don’t like her. I don’t like Sharples.
They want to ban smoking for eg. I’m a non-smoker… they can get stuffed… morons.
Oh yeah… they want to close on-licences early. How old are these fucking people?
They want to ban kissing in public. Well, they probably do the killjoy pricks.
It’s like Geoffrey Palmer telling us how it should be with alcohol reform or something. How about you whip up an exhaustive finely detailed investigative report on your fucking rocking chair you old old old old old dried up fart?
Everyone loves Sharples? Sure sure, and I like watching TV adverts, crocs and roilly wull speokurn koiwois.
I don’t get the Ryan Sproull joke…. throw me a bone man.
I did think ‘geez, she doesn’t actually sound all the Maori’. She sounds more white kiwi to me.
Vote:December 15th, 2012 at 7:27 am
This thread has shown Kiwiblog commenting at its best and worst, from perceptive appreciation and gentle humour to automatic gainsaying and ritualised abuse.
Vote:December 15th, 2012 at 8:01 am
We’ll do the same when you retire, comrade mike.
Vote:December 15th, 2012 at 8:02 am
Some days I feel that I am retired already.
Vote:December 15th, 2012 at 8:11 am
Left rigt and center… tutae = shit .
Vote: