The Maori Party and ETS

updatedIt is well known that the Maori Party has decided to vote for( as opposed to support) the emissions trading scheme, despite Rahui Katene and Hone Harawira being publically opposed to the scheme, as are many of those in the five iwi who this deal is proported to support. Harawira has said he only answers to his constituents.

Did his constituents support the ETS? This deal could be the make or break of the Maori Party. The party does not support the legislation. It is really the two leaders who are ministers telling the rest of the caucus how they must vote - and doing a really bad job justifying the rationale behind that stance.

Here's the Maori Party release. Here is the National Party release. Notice the macron over the "a" in Maori in the National Party release - but not in the Maori Party release. National is now not only dotting i's and crossing t's, it is even trying to macronise one or two media releases. But you'd think they`d do it consistently.

On 19 November Nick Smith signed his letter to Maori leaders Yours sincerely. On the same day he wrote anothe letter to the Iwi Leadership Group, peppered with Maori salutations, greetings and macrons. Four days later a letter started off "tena koe Tariana and Pita, (instead of tena korua)and concluded heio ano(that is all), whereas naku noa would have been perhaps more appropriate.

If Nick Smith is going to use a bit of Maori, perhaps he should do a crash course on the basics so he can get it correct. I wonder when he will be demoted?[ update particularly after this - how embarrassing.]

I’d like to recommend that all bloggers who support National, particularly David Farrar and WhaleOil, put a macron over the appropriate letter in the word 'Maori' in all blog posts ;-0.

Then they can work on other phrases such as 'Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu'.