Hauiti hardly progressive | The Jackal

14 May 2013

Hauiti hardly progressive

Hasn't National done well to spin the Aaron Gilmore scandal to their advantage? Not only has John Key been able to pretend he’s a leader by taking the moral high ground, one of the right wings main propagandists, Cameron Slater, got his face on the news to complain about bullying. That might seem ironic, but the real irony is that such bullyboy tactics are commonplace within the right wing, which makes their supposed outrage rather trite.

Aaron Gilmore getting drunk and threatening a person’s job wasn't anything unusual for a National MP; neither was trying to mislead. In fact the Tories lie to each other all the time, just like they lie to the public.

What was unusual was the single-minded focus of the mainstream media on Aaron Gilmore, who played his part as the bumbling fool perfectly. In fact one suspects that the medias disproportionate attention given to the list MP's stupidity was specifically designed to keep other stories out of the limelight. However there’s another reason for why the MSM wanted Gilmore gone.

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the well controlled media circus is that Claudette Hauiti has jumped nine places in the National party rankings to replace Gilmore, not because she's particular talented, but because she apparently ticks all the boxes.

Hauiti is obviously Maori, female and a lesbian, and therefore is a difficult Tory for the progressive left to criticize. That's more than can be said for the two male list MP's Hauiti jumped ahead of, who were all too familiar as the born to rule to be effective at closing down the scandal.

So who exactly is Claudette Hauiti? For starters she's built up a successful Auckland based media company called Front of the Box Productions LTD., which has received a couple of million dollars of public funding. That funding caused former Act party leader, Rodney Hide, to question the then Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia, about value for money... There will be no easy road between the far right and National's new MP.

Working with many actors and journalists producing various programs, some of which haven't been aired for some reason, Claudette Hauiti obviously has support from the very organization’s that have been so damning of Aaron Gilmore, which in my opinion is a bit of a conflict of interest.

Why is that a problem you might ask? After all, Hauiti can’t be worse than the drunken bully Aaron Gilmore. Well even though New Zealand has come to expect self-serving politicians anyway, Hauiti is a wolf in sheep's clothing and just as devious as any of her peers. Obviously Hauiti will feel right at home within a political party looking after the elites business interests, because she is of and for the 2%.

This seems to be news to some on the left, who have claimed Hauiti is somehow open-minded because she was apparently a former Grassroots Labour supporter, something that Hauiti has now explained away as being for research purposes.

Some on the left have gone so far as to claim she will support Hone Harawira‘s food in schools bill, even though there’s no way that will happen, not only because National won’t allow a conscience vote on the issue, but because Hauiti herself is highly critical of any type of welfare. Hell has more chance of freezing over before Hauiti crosses the floor to support any of the lefts progressive policies.