PRESS RELEASE
Hone Harawira
Thursday 5 May 2011

Last night on Close Up I briefly mentioned Rodney Hide being dumped from ACT.

Now I’m no great fan of Rodney Hide, or his party, or his policies, but his political demise should send shivers through those who purport to love democracy.

You all remember the old Rodney - an overweight little nobody with no future in politics, who took up an invitation to be on “Dancing with the Stars” lost heaps of weight, stomped and clumped his way through a competition he had no chance of winning, and topped it all off by dropping his beautiful partner on her head on national television!

But he took all the jests, stayed with his exercise regime, bought that hideous yellow jacket to promote his party, pinned on an irrepressible smile, and while all the pundits were writing off his chances in the 2008 election, he went out and knocked on every door in Epsom – and won!

People can say all they like about whether National let him win, but the effort the man put in deserved a favourable result anyway. He worked his arse off for his win.

And even though ACT only won 3.65% of the party vote, because Rodney won his seat, he was able to bring 4 other MPs into the house.

For all his obvious foibles, Rodney Hide not only brought ACT back from the grave, he actually brought them back to the government table and got them two ministerial positions.

And then what happens? Rising up out of his own grave comes Don Brash, a 70 year-old political corpse who lost a safe National seat 30 years ago lost an election for National in 2005 and got dumped from the leadership in 2008. Brash meets with the Board of ACT and gets them to dump Rodney as leader and give him the job!

No discussion with the membership. No discussion with the voters who actually put Rodney into parliament. Just dump Rodney - and Brash wasn’t even a member of the bloody ACT party for God’s sake!!

And what about the team that Rodney gave political life to; what do they do? Do they swing in behind their leader? Do they threaten to resign if their leader is dumped for an alien? Do they demand for a meeting of the ACT party membership to resolve an unconstitutional impasse?

No chance …

Their love for Rodney last only as long as he’s the leader, and as soon as he gets the chop, they’re all swearing a deep and abiding love for the guy they all hated a few years ago.

If that’s pakeha politics, then no thanks … Maori politics may be tough, but the personal humiliation and disgrace that Rodney Hide has had to endure has been really quite sickening.

Oh yeah, and one other thing. I ain’t no great fan of Rodney Hide, and I ain’t no great fan of Osama Bin Laden either. But you can’t help but note their passing.

Ends

________________________________________

© Scoop Media