John Minto: What the Mana Victory Means

I should declare my interest at the outset - I'm a member of the Mana Party and in the last few weeks I've been helping Hone Harawira's campaign team in West Auckland.

On its website on Saturday night the Remuera Community newspaper (aka the New Zealand Herald) ran the headline "Harawira takes Mana to parliament" following the 48% to 41% win for Hone Harawira over his closest contender in the Te Tai Tokerau by election.

It was a story the paper did its utmost to prevent with an unprecedented number of editorials, cartoons and featured letters in recent weeks which fiercely attacked the party and its leader.

For the Herald and most of the establishment Harawira represents a real challenge. He doesn't play by their rules. He's too stroppy and demanding - not just for a better deal for Maori but for all low-income New Zealanders.

These corporate types would have rejoiced had Mana been throttled at birth.

The Herald favourite has been the Maori Party with its alignment with the corporate-focused iwi leaders group and its coalition deal with the National-led government. This cosy arrangement has meant winning some minor policy concessions from the government while providing political cover for National's bare-knuckled attacks on workers' rights and beneficiaries, tax cuts for the rich, GST increases for the poor and savage cuts to the public sector. The Maori Party has even supported the privatisation of public assets - provided the iwi corporates get a decent share of the spoils.

The Maori Party have gained crumbs from National while Maori families and whole New Zealand communities are driven further backwards.

Hone Harawira and Mana represent a serious challenge to this relationship. If the Party can get wider traction it will threaten the right-wing economic consensus which has been the basis of Labour and National policies for the past generation. This threat from Mana is the reason the Prime Minister said he hoped Labour's Kelvin Davis would win the by-election and it's the same reason Labour leader Phil Goff says he would refuse to work with Harawira in parliament.

Even now John Key says Hone Harawira "cannot really claim victory" in the Te Tai Tokerau because of a reduced majority of the popular vote. Work that one out if you can.

But against the much vaunted Labour Party machine and media opposition Hone Harawira ran a successful campaign to establish Mana in parliament through a popular vote of the people.

For Mana the important questions in coming weeks will be what relationship it will have, or not have, with the Maori Party. Will it stand candidates with the aim of securing all the Maori seats for Mana? Or will it forge a relationship with the Maori Party and leave Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia to fight Labour alone in the other Maori seats? And what's the best way to reach out and bring the hundreds of thousands of struggling New Zealanders together into a fighting movement which demands change rather than makes feeble appeals for fairness?

I think Mana is the most exciting parliamentary political development in a generation. It's the first time I've ever joined a political party. I've taped the receipt to the wall of my office and I tell people, only half jokingly, that it could be my biggest political mistake or it could be the most exciting opportunity for real change in my lifetime. I'll be doing my best to make sure it's the latter.

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