Politicians make their annual pilgrimage to Ratana, near Wanganui to celebrate the birth of the religious movement's founder.
The National Government and its Maori Party partners presented a united face when Prime Minister John Key visited Ratana Pa this afternoon.
In a comment clearly aimed at Mr Harawira, Mr Key said: "I say to those critics, what can you achieve from opposition? And the answer is nothing.
"You achieve things when you are part of the solution, not when you are solely carping on about problems." [United Front at Ratana]
And the National Government backed this up with a promise to spend an average of $27,000 on maintenance and insulation on each of the 100 homes ($2.7M total) in the Ratana community.
Link: Thumbnail Sketch of Ratana (The man the religion is based around) and a bit more here
The National Government and its Maori Party partners presented a united face when Prime Minister John Key visited Ratana Pa this afternoon.
In a comment clearly aimed at Mr Harawira, Mr Key said: "I say to those critics, what can you achieve from opposition? And the answer is nothing.
"You achieve things when you are part of the solution, not when you are solely carping on about problems." [United Front at Ratana]
And the National Government backed this up with a promise to spend an average of $27,000 on maintenance and insulation on each of the 100 homes ($2.7M total) in the Ratana community.
Link: Thumbnail Sketch of Ratana (The man the religion is based around) and a bit more here
Zen, can you help me with the purpose of those post as I understand the expenditure is pursuant to existing legislation. It isn't a special suck up to Maoridom on a day when Ratana in fact reaffirmed its links to that waste of space of a party, Labour.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the post was really nothing more than noting the event.
ReplyDeleteI refrained from making any comments, insightful or otherwise as I haven't really formed an opinion on this.
The thrust of the first article was that even though National were welcome, Ratana are probably going to back Labour, but maybe Key is a patient man and hopes to gain something in the long term, perhaps even it is just a little goodwill.
I thought it was good politiking of John Key bringing Hone into the days discussion though. He's not afraid of having his say on this (from the Maori party's point of view) purely internal matter...
And yes, the Ratana trust gets to manage $2.7 Million towards repairs for 100 homes. I just think that's interesting how our tax dollars work, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm judging it good or bad. It simply caught my attention earlier and the link was made, and I'm curious to now see what the total government investment in insulation rebates now is, as well as an ongoing interest in tracking what different government departments spend money on and announce in an election year (I have this theory that whatever the EFA caps are on spending will pale into insignificance when looking at government expenditure on items that could be aligned to policy promotion - and my interest applies equally to all political parties that manage to leverage this).
The trip to Ratana though does seem to be in the National psyche as an annual pilgrimage.
Given my last divisive, nasty and rude mention of tapu I suppose I could observe that there is no annual pilgrimage to meet with the Exclusive Brethren (although I'm sure Nicky believes the meetings still happen in the dead of night) and would wonder what level of outrage such a visit would inspire.
Or perhaps National are planning to attend an Easter Catholic Service in an official capacity before announcing another $2.7 million worth of funding into tax payer funded abortion services.
But of course, that's just me teasing people as I mull over history and politics.
Oh Zen :) I'm sorry for getting grumpy at you. Big hugs.
ReplyDelete