h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why Morris Dancing? I have _absolutely_ _no_ _idea_.

It was probably some team bonding thing. Can't remember if they got dressed up, or if they got the real Morris Dancers in for a performance (which wouldn't be so bad). It's just the image thing that was problematic, and they're still trying to recover from that. Although it is also part of who they are, and I think they need to be careful to not lose their essence and become totally slick media savvy types (or at least not too soon).

Try "morris dancing" +"the greens" +nz in google and you'll see what I mean about the image thing. Couldn't find an article explaining the conference though.

Yes - I didn't see very much about it, but I was interested to see the way the Green Party in Germany was characterised in their elections. For something which started out as a popular anti-nuclear protest movement, then swung into the Bundestag full of good ideas ... the suggestion was they've become just another bunch of slickers too, albeit preferable to the alternatives.

Hard not to, I guess

Just googled - thanks! - that was great!

Morris dancing. There's just no excuse.

Mind you, the costumes here

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/4379/gmm/gmm.htm

Look a lot better than the ones we have.

I think it's inevitiable really, but is ok too because they certainly pull the maintream forward even while losing their cutting edge. Something else will arise to take their place, hopefully before not too long.

Almost forgot! Today the specials are announced, so the bun fight should start again.

Yes, that will be interesting. Will they be announced at any particular time?

11am I think. Strange that it's on a Saturday. Maybe it's to give people time to think about things before the next round of negotiations.

National lost a seat, and the overhand reduced by 1 so the number of MPs will be 121. National have conceded the election, and Labour are now free to piece together a coalition.

Final numbers (Labour need a 61 majority):

Labour has been confirmed with 50 seats

National 48

*New Zealand First 7

*the Greens 6

*the Maori Party 4

*United Future 3

ACT 2

*Progressives 1


*potential coalition or support partners.

Now, just how Progressive is this poor lonely Progressive MP? If they are genuinely what they say they are, is there any chance of a Labour/Green/Maori/Progressive mix?

Jim Anderton (the Progressive man) will definitely be in coalition with Labour (He's been there for the past two terms).

If the Maori Party decide to either go into coaltion with Labour, or support them on confidence and supply, then Labour can also choose the Greens as coalition partners.

If the Maori Party don't support Labour, then Labour need NZ FIrst and/or United Future both of whom say they won't support a govt with the Greens in cabinet. So Labour could do a deal with NZF and UF and then manage as a minority govt. I can't see them in coalition with NZF or maybe not even UF.

So really the ball is in the Maori Party's court.

The tricky thing is that the Maori Party formed when Labour MP Tariana Turia left Labour, and won the subsequent byelection and came back in as a Maori Party MP. What prompted that was the Labour govt's seabed and foreshore legislation which effectively stopped Maori going to court to legally establish customary entitlement (well actually if the court had gone in their favour it would have given them normal title I think). Because Labour stopped them being able to have their day in court (which was a very racist piece of legislation) Maori walked on parliament last year, 20,000 strong, and then the Maori Party ascended.

There is apparenlty bad blood between Clark and Turia. It'll be interesting to see if this can be resolved.

It will also be interesting to see what Labour are willing to give up re the seabed and foreshore. Most people don't want to see it in private ownership, but then there is already non-maori private ownership in some places (which is why the legislation was so bad). Personally I don't have a problelm with iwi or hapu being given title as long as they are prohibited from selling it. But then maybe this prohibition would have to apply to non-maori too.

Hard to know what Labour will do. Huge amounts of NZ land is being bought up by overseas owners and Labour seem unwilling to do anything about this (mainly because they don't want to scare the horses with socialist legislation). Because of this I'm not sure that land wouldn't be better off under private Maori title

And the seabed and foreshore is a somewhat different issue because it's not technically land. Maori consider it a resource that they *never ceded to the Crown. Ownership has never been legally tested until now.

I think it's probably more complex than this, and certianly there is much about the seabed legislation that I'm not familiar with. Ditto what Maori actually want. I suspect that I will be learning much more about it in the coming months.

Obviously Labour/Progressive/Maori/Green would be my preferred option. There is still the issue of being in govt or supporting on confidence ans supply. Someone did talk recently about the Maori Party and the Greens working together more closely. Certainly there is alot of common ground. And the Greens voted against the seabed and foreshore legislation.

H'mmm. It's nice to see the Maori Party potentially being in a position of power, isn't it?

How many seats did the Nats have in the last Parliament?