Independent MP Hone Harawira stands to get a $13,700 pay rise and more than $50,000 in taxpayer funding if he is re-elected to Parliament while leader of his new Mana Party.
The Te Tai Tokerau MP intends to resign today and force a by-election, probably in June, to renew his mandate under the Mana banner, campaigning against GST.
He made the announcement after launching his party on Saturday in front of about 300 former Maori Party supporters and Left-wing activists.
And it seems as though Hone has had some encouragement from another who is skilled at extracting dollars from the public purse - read on:
A by-election will cost about $500,000 to run, but Progressive leader Jim Anderton, who is his party's sole MP, said there was a significant advantage in being a leader over being an independent.
That included extra speaking rights in Parliament and a big boost in parliamentary funding, though Mr Harawira appears to have missed the cutoff for free broadcast advertising at the election.
Hone will however lose his MP's salary when he resigns from Parliament, and he will also lose his travel entitlements until such time as he is reelected. Still, he shouldn't have to venture far out of the Te Tai Tokerau. The willingness of Mana Party members to finance him will be tested for a few weeks.
And lastly, Big News reports that Hone is misrepresenting himself - check this out:
from the brand new Mana Party website.
MANA, movement of the people, is Aotearoa’s newest political force, led by Hon Hone Harawira, Independent MP for Tai Tokerau.He is actually the MP for Te Tai Tokerau, not the Hon. Hone Harawira. Not a particularly great start for a new political movement that is after the "intelligent" Maori vote.
Aha; surely that is the ultimate irony; Hone Harawira wrongly using the "white motherf***ers'" honorific to big-note. Hone Harawira, man of Mana; yeah right!
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