Hone Harawira: MANA decision was unanimous, Sue Bradford didn’t stay around for the vote.

MANA Leader Hone Harawira told TVNZ’s Q+A programme that MANA member Sue Bradford left this weekend’s hui before a decision was taken on whether to begin negotiations with the Internet Party over a possible alliance.

“I think you need to start listening to who the leader of the party is. It’s not Sue Bradford. She left the meeting before the decision was taken and the decision at the end of the night from all seven electorates and the youth wing, MANA Rangatahi was unanimous to go ahead with further negotiations with the Internet Party. So that’s what we’ve been charged to do. We’re going to be moving ahead with that over the next few days.”

He said neither party had presented its bottom lines for negotiation yet.

“We don’t have any bottom lines as yet. We don’t want to lock ourselves into any fixed position. We asked first of all that he would declare that he wouldn’t work with National, we need to know what his policies are going to be, who the candidates are going to be and we need to make sure his membership base is tidied up. “

“There are some key things for us. Feeding the kids, housing the homeless and jobs for everyone – that’s the kind of focus we want to see. His is mainly about the internet security and keep the spy agencies – the spooks – out of the lives of New Zealanders which we would also support. We need to see if we can bring those things together in a package that both parties can agree to take to the electorate in 2014. If we can, we’ve got a deal. If we can’t, well, we’ll shake hands and move on as independent entities.”

“We are here to share what resources we have on our part. We have a committed army of activists. We have a seat in parliament. We already have 1.5 per cent in the polls.”

“What he has to offer is his expertise in the technical area, his ability to pay employees to achieve certain objectives but no offer of direct cash has been made either yesterday at the hui or to us in private.”

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