Kiwiblog

First an interview with Michelle Hewitson. I think the interview is in fact very perceptive, and worth a read.

I asked her son if only his mother was allowed to keep her shoes on. “Pretty much.” How does that work? “She can pretty much go wherever she likes.” …

Because of that surprising show of nerves – it’s not a question you ordinarily think to ask of a Harawira – I asked whether anything frightened him.

“I guess … not really. I don’t think so.” Except his mother? “Ha, ha. Yeah, I guess. She always will, I suppose. She’s my mum.”

All of the above tells you what you need to know about being raised Harawira. You can do what you want and you don’t have to take your shoes off. It’s one definition of being a rebel.

And Claire Trevett:

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira yesterday defended himself against the call for him to resign and took a thinly veiled swipe at the party’s leadership, claiming the wider party was being “dictated to” by a few individuals.

This has the potential to get very messy, especially as the MPs seem to now be communicating through the media with each other, not directly.

And Audrey Young:

Maori Party president Whatarangi Winiata’s bombshell in asking MP Hone Harawira to resign will throw it the party into unprecedented turmoil.

But Winiata and co-leaders Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples knew that when the request was put to Harawira at a hui in Kaitaia on Thursday.

The fact that they are willing to accept the internal grief, and possibly a permanent rift with the north, shows how strongly they feel about him going.

It has been a decision reached more in sorrow than anger. And it is more an act of self-preservation than of punishment.

If it has been this difficult, they’ve done well to keep things so tight for so long.

The Maori Party represents a broad church of views, from left to conservative. It is not Harawira’s radicalism per se that is the problem but the way he expresses his views in a polarising way.

And can a leopard change his spots?

It was clear from the press conference Turia and Sharples held at Parliament yesterday that their tolerance for Harawira is an at end. The possibility of his remaining a colleague seems remote at this stage.

There can be no mistaking the message: Harawira is not a team-player and is not suited to the disciplines of a political party. The hope is that he recognises that himself.

But Harawiras don’t do humiliation, and the default position would have to be on his fighting expulsion – which in itself could be damaging to the party.

It is a battle the party’s leaders calculated is worth risking.

I hope there is a way forward, because there are some big issues to be resolved such as the Foreshore & Seabed Act, and schisms within the Maori Party will make it harder to find a solution.

Michele Hewitson interviews Mike Williams in the Weekend Herald. He agreed to it before he got told to stop giving interviews.

He says that of course some good ideas came out of the congress but that it’s a big party and there are always going to be some dumb ones. “You cannot stop people coming up with idiotic ideas and if I’d heard what he’d said I would have said, ‘That’s a bloody stupid idea’.” At the time he said this he didn’t know that “he” was Ruth Dyson’s husband.

Didn’t he? I understand that he did refer to him by first name. It would be extraordinary not to recognise someone who has been a long-time member of the ruling NZ Council.

They also discuss the song, which he thinks was “quite good”:

I am fixated on another amazingly silly moment from the congress: the god-awful sing-song by four lady Labour MPs.

“Well, I thought it was quite good.”

He must, I say, be lying through his teeth.

“Well, I thought the words were quite good. I thought the singers were vocally challenged.”

That is one way of putting it, although I was too engaged in snorting into my coffee to put it that way.

He says, “For God’s sake, we’ve got to chill out a bit. You’ve got to have a bit of fun. I thought it was funny.”

“It wasn’t funny. It was appalling,” I say. “The only thing that could have been a worse look would have been morris dancing.”

Michelle – he wasn’t lying through his teeth, he was merely confused through his teeth!

A fairly amusing interview by Michelle Hewitson with the transmogrified (that term always makes me think of Calvin and Hobbes) John Banks. An extract:

To tell you the truth, I have been waiting for him to stuff up before going to see him in his second incarnation as mayor. He would not be offended by this: “You’re always remembered for your mistakes, not your achievements.”

But he seems to have been running along rather smoothly. He says he learned from his “three years in the wilderness” that his leadership style had to change and, amazingly, he seems to have managed it. I did ask around a bit and heard “obliging, transparent, inclusive”. He says, “It is still important to disagree but it is not necessary to be disagreeable”. Which suggests that he does now agree that he was disagreeable. “Of course.”

The interview also touches on how well he is working with ARC Chairman Mike Lee, despite their different political outlooks.