Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

NZ Herald cartoonist 'Body' understands rebel Maori Party MP Hone Harawira well. I'm sure he would probably prefer a New Zealand without all the annoying white people, going by the language in his recent email exchange.

* NZ Herald - Cartoon: That'll Please Hone

Despite the public protestations of inclusion, many within the Maori Party are still well grounded in their ideas of Maori separatism and Maori sovereignty.

Some understand that these ideals can be furthered by promoting individual responsibility, with funding for the likes of health and education following the individual (allowing for Maori education Maori health providers).

However others within the party (like Hone) can't see the woods for the trees, and want to cling to the big tax, nanny state control of their beloved Labour Party.

It is unfortunate that the National Party has been hijacked by Nick Smith's blind ambition to force through an unpopular, expensive, and totally unnecessary scheme to buy faux "carbon credits", especially when few other countries have anything similar passed into law.

Admittedly, doing absolutely nothing isn't an option (otherwise Labour's equally silly law comes in by default from January next year), but all that is needed is to repeal that bad bill, and agree not to put anything else in its place.

What in actual fact is the Government going to be "buying" with all our taxpayer money?? Carbon credits and the whole idea of a "trading scheme" for a natural gas is a huge farce, and one that more and more people are waking up to (despite the ongoing one-sided propaganda promoted by all those stupid journalists who swallow the PR fed by the IPCC's spokespeople.)