OPINION: Mana and Internet Party unholy alliance is an insult to all NZ ICT workers

GUEST COMMENT

There are over forty five thousand ICT workers in New Zealand. We are a strong industry. We have the capability to provide export values more than milk and butter in the near future. We are already billions of dollars advanced in terms of turnover. We are serious. So when an unholy alliance of hard left politics coupled with a convicted fraudster appears as a contender to politics, reportedly speaking in our name, we need to be damn careful before we take our vote and put it behind a machine that, in my opinion, is possibly one of the most aborted, mangled, and ugly conglomerates that I have ever seen.

Hone Harawira:

“Harawira lashed out at white people over criticism that he bunked off a work trip to visit Paris, accusing “white motherf****s” of “puritanical bullsh*” for expecting him to follow the rules in an email exchange.” – 3News

Kim Dotcom:

“Arrested by German police for trafficking in stolen phone calling card numbers” and “eventually convicted of 11 counts of computer fraud, 10 counts of data espionage, and an assortment of other charges” and ” announced his intention to invest €50 million in the company. The announcement caused the share value of Letsbuyit.com to jump and Schmitz cashed out, making a profit of €1.5 million” and “Schmitz moved to Thailand to avoid investigation where he was subsequently arrested on behalf of German authorities” and “he allegedly pretended to kill himself online, posting a message on his website that from now on he wished to be known as “His Royal Highness King Kimble the First, Ruler of the Kimpire” and “was deported back to Germany where he pleaded guilty to embezzlement” and “was subsequently convicted for failing to disclose his shareholding to the Securities and Futures Commission” – Wikipedia

“Kim Dotcom took part in “racist day” and referred to his American crew as “my little n……” – giving them gollywogs while recording his album Good Times.” - Stuff

“3 News broke the story last night that Dotcom owns one of the rarest copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf in existence, now, a photo of Dotcom wearing a Nazi helmet has also emerged.”- 3News.

So we have a borderline racist and a convicted criminal, with arguably some very questionable judgement, that have joined forces with the glue between them being Laila Harre, and old Left agitator. So what does she have to say about it? The quotes are sourced from this interview:

“The Internet Party has grown out of an existing constituency of people who are very concerned about the lost opportunities that we’re seeing day by day with a government that’s making very short term pragmatic decisions and isn’t enabling the full potential of the internet and of the technological revolution, to play a part in our lives.”

What a load of bunk. The Internet Party is a, in my opinion, financial arrangement between Mana and Kim Dotcom that sees Harawira(s) getting a significant amount of cash (millions) in an effort of Kim Dotcom to have a go at government. Seems to me that, even though I have been a critic, our Internet access is increasingly getting better. So why do we need these guys and girls?

Let’s take another angle. The Mana Internet Party has a real focus on “tin and iron”. Building network links and the like. But you know what, that’s not actually how ICT works at all, it’s important, but it’s something that comes after what strategy you decide on. In other words, let’s decide what is important as a country and then figure out what tech we need to support that.

” I think one of the great things about this party is it represents the sort of fullness and diversity of the internet generation. At one side we have cutting edge entrepreneurs, people who really see the opportunities in an expansion of this technology for New Zealand, and there’s no question at all that we cannot get beyond our current economic malaise without a massive transformation.”

So here’s the thing lady, I’m part of the “Internet Generation” and I have to say, talking to my peer group, the chances of you getting votes from us is pretty much zip. This statement is just gibberish. What we are looking for is good ICT policy. Something that the Mana Internet Party simply does not have. In fact, National and the Right are dragging badly here as well. If you want to look for good policy then check out Labour and the Greens. Here’s hoping that National de-couples their old view of ICT policy and comes up with something solid so we have a good choice.

“A lack of quality digital internet services in this country is probably costing us about 9% of our GDP. Look I live 2 kilometres from Downtown Auckland. My internet speed is 8 megabits per second.”

This shows La La Laila’s basic ignorance of what is in place right now. I live 8 kilometres from Downtown Wellington and my internet speed is over 70 megabits per second with no data cap. It’s pretty awesome to be honest.

If you want another example, in my opinion, of the vote buying side of this unholy alliance. Here’s one:

“Internet Party leader Laila Harre wants cannabis to be decriminalised.”- TVNZ

Do I need to say more?

In my opinion, as a 45,000 strong voter base these are the things we should be looking for, instead of a vapid, disingenuous, coat tail dragging bunch of marketers:

• What is going on with UFB? This is the most important aspect of infrastructure in New Zealand and it’s bound up in “Architecture by Contract Management”.
• How are we going to get the next generation to actually take up ICT as an education? And retain them once trained?
• How are we going to support New Zealand ICT industry instead of pouring billions into offshore body shops?
• How do we implement Smart City?
• How do we take our most incubated products and showcase them internationally?
• How do we get back to being a world leader in ICT?
• How do we exploit our geographic location for data storage?

And so on…

Instead, what we have, in my opinion, is a bunch of disaffected left wing potential racists (white or brown) that are power hunger and completely desperate to land some seats in parliament. It makes a mockery of our political system and is devalues our ICT industry.

Quite frankly, our industry deserves better than this. I’m surprised that Vikram Kumar, one of our outstanding ICT leaders, has chosen to associate himself with this movement. It would be interesting to know what his salary is.

Ian Apperley is the director at Isis Group and blogs at Whatisitwellington.