Out with the old, in view with the new

Hone Harawira

How sat­ir­ists, and the com­mon work­er, will miss the great firebrand of Māor­i­dom. Yes, his fatal decision to go full Dot­com proved his undo­ing, but it’s not his loss alone. Hone had a way of pro­vok­ing people that meant his polit­ics, for bet­ter or worse, stuck in people’s minds. Revolu­tion­ary, thug, pup­pet, lone wolf — Par­lia­ment is quieter without his voice.

Cam Calder

Prob­ably best known for being the former dent­ist-cum-doc­tor who knocked out one of his eyes with a cham­pagne cork. That’s right, Nation­al had a one-eyed dent­ist, who liked to drink, in Par­lia­ment for six years, and not a scan­dal to be had! Keen on both envir­on­ment­al and pro­state issues, he would have been a satirist’s dream if only he’d screwed up!

Clayton Cosgrove and Moana Mackey

Moana Mackey intro­duced many of us to the term ‘sh**bag’ as a verb, and Clayton Cos­grove was a speak­er who wouldn’t shy away from using it. Cos­grove and his eye­brows are ‘old school’ or ‘out­dated’ depend­ing on your view. He was pas­sion­ate about Christ­ch­urch, but reck­less with his lan­guage. Mackey, at 40, will no doubt return, and con­ceiv­ably over Anne Tolley’s dead body. It’s an East Coast thing.

Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia

‘The end of an era’. It wasn’t just that they formed the Māori Party, it was how it was formed, against who, and what it was in response to. They’ve been a fad­ing force over the last term, though Tari­ana could still ‘Hulk up’ against tobacco. They’ll remain in the back­ground to guide fresh­er faces #attheen­doftheday.

And wel­comes…

Marama Fox

A former teach­er and adviser to the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion, it’s Fox’s per­son­al­ity that will make her stand out (apart from a kick-ass last name for polit­ics). Think young Tari­ana, with Hekia’s smirk and Hone’s body lan­guage. Could be amaz­ing, pos­sibly hil­ari­ous, or just incred­ibly annoying.

Chris Bishop and Todd Barclay

Any­one who’s ever debated with Chris Bish­op will tell you he comes to play, and play hard, as evid­ence by tak­ing Tre­vor ‘Don’t call me Moa’ Mal­lard to the brink. Todd Barclay looks like Tim Southee’s kid broth­er. Both have worked for big tobacco and, per­haps sur­pris­ingly, don’t shy away from that. In the post-TPPA gov­ern­ment, their par­tic­u­lar set of skills will be in demand.

Peeni Henare and Jenny Salesa

Labour are basic­ally the Auto­bots after Optimus Prime (Red Robot­ic Truck) gets killed — still won­der­ing who will take up the mat­rix of lead­er­ship. At least their Māori/PI mem­bers can cheer. Hen­are has polit­ics in the blood. It’s Nation­al blood, but 24/7, so who cares? Salesa’s a former law­yer, who replaces Ross Robertson. She’s young, intel­li­gent and pas­sion­ate, and it will be inter­est­ing to see what respons­ib­il­it­ies Labour gives her.

James Shaw

Wel­ling­ton Cent­ral is now covered by three MPs, which also hap­pens to rep­res­ent accur­ately how the cap­it­al party vote split. Also ‘Foster-Bell, Robertson and Shaw’ sounds like a high-end leg­al firm or an amaz­ing folk band — props to the first char­ity that gets these three to be the latter.