What role will the Maori Party have?

As many will know, unlike these amateurs, I have picked all along that the Maori Party will side with National outside of a formal coalition. And it will.

John Key is to meet the Maori Party tomorrow to discuss what role it will have in the next government. The Maori Party has already prepared a policy paper. I'm hoping the Maori Party won’t seek a coalition agreement - there would be too many “agree to disagree” clauses – particularly with Dunne in there. In 2005 Labour already had the numbers to form a government and was not prepared to meet enough of the party's bottom lines to win its support, so I’m hoping this doesn’t happen this year.

Key should get a good agreement with the Maori Party and give it some responsibility if he doesn’t want his new government to be a one term government. I’d like to see the Maori Party with ministerial roles in Education and Health and I recon they will - with Georgina Te Heu heu to have Maori Affairs. But I don't think the latter will happen. Yet education is an important portfolio for the Maori Party to have some influence over as 46% of Maori are under 20.

National is not abolishing the Maori seats in this parliamentary term and so the seats should not be an issue – therefore a bill from the Maori Party to entrench the seats should not be too much of a dead rat to swallow if push comes to shove.

But I don’t think it will. Perhaps in return for some good budgetary roles National will convince the Maori Party to delay introducing its bill on the Maori seats. After all, getting a good education and securing employment is more important than having a choice of electoral rolls. Mana motuhake and Whanau ora is more important than entrenching seats that aren’t going to be removed any time soon.

Keep your sticky mitts off our party votes

There's a bit of a bitch fight going on between the Greens and the Maori Party at the moment.

And the Greens started it.

They want those in the Maori seats to vote Green instead of the Maori Party for the list vote and encourage this by putting forward candidates - because the Maori Party vote is likely to be "wasted" due to getting more electoral seats in proportion to that party vote.

So, the Greens want an overhang, and to directly benefit from it so that National and friends needs a bigger majority to govern.In other words they want the Left to have more seats than their list vote entitle them to. Or, to put it another way, if the Greens get more list seats off the Maori electorate, that does not mean that the Maori party loses more seats - because they`ll probably get more than they currently have- but there will be more MPs in parliament, creating a bigger Maori seat overhang.

If the Maori Party don`t like the Greens putting forward low profile candidates in the Maori seats as it may take off list votes that may not be needed, it should work to increase its list vote in the wider electorate, not just the Maori electorate.

Also see Labour's friends are deserting them .