Richard Harman wrote at Politik yesterday about the National Party selection in Takanini over the weekend.
National’s new leader Todd Muller set out yesterday to answer critics who had charged that his “Make America Great Again” cap and the absence of any Maori on his new front bench pointed to him being tone-deaf on racial matters.
But within hours of him making a speech in his home town of Te Puna in front of a Tina Rangatiratanga [sic] flag, his party was once again rejecting one of its ethnic MPs for an electorate nomination.
The party’s candidate for the heavily Polynesian South Auckland new electorate of Takanini is a Sydney-born Lebanese who migrated to New Zealand eight years ago, Rima Nakhle.
Ms Nakhle beat Samoan sitting list MP, Agnes Loheni for the selection.
This is the second time this election cycle that National has passed over a sitting list MP of colour for selection.
In his haste to do the dirty work of Andrew Hunt and Peter Goodfellow, Richard Harman obviously didn’t bother to check that for the first time since Adam was in nappies the five people who got past pre-selection were all women, and all were what he rather condescendingly calls “ethnic”.
It seems that in a panel of five “ethnic” candidates, Rima Nahkle wasn’t brown enough for the liberal elite angst of Richard Harman.
What he also didn’t mention was that Rima Nahkle won on the first ballot. That means she scored more than 50% of the delegates on the first ballot. Hardly a close run thing.
He also neglected to mention that Andrew Hunt tried to bowl the winning candidate at pre-selection, but was out-foxed by Daniel Newman who bothered to make sure the electorate got the say not head office.
This result adds to the mounting string of losses by Hunt to the Machiavellian skills of Daniel Newman who is exacting a long-lasting utu against the party hierarchy for bowling him at pre-selection some years ago.
What was interesting also is the involvement of Michelle Boag, as a regional delegate, in this selection. Her active meddling in the electorate was met with dismay.
The National Party hierarchy still haven’t learned not to take on Daniel Newman in his home patch.
Agnes Loheni was not the target at this selection, she just happened to be the cannon-fodder put up by the hierarchy to try to force a candidate on Takanini in some sort of backroom deal.
That was never going to happen due to the strong membership of the new electorate that had flowed across from an equally strong electorate next door.
The delegates voted to give the party a chance of holding Takinini by selecting a well respected local candidate.
What is clear is that the National Party hierarchy and especially the Regional Chair, Andrew Hunt, continue to fail to understand how members think and feel.
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