The best news we have had for a week. Wally Stone has been elected as a runanga representative of Ngati Wheke to the Te Runanga O Ngai Tahu ruling council.
Wally , who has the huge respect of the New Zealand business community fell foul of Mark Solomon and left his job as chair of the financial power house of Ngai Tahu empire - Ngai Tahu Holding corp earlier this year.
The last ten years has seen an unstable tribe council riven by bitter personality battles that have spilled into the public arena.
We have been happy to put our hand up and say that Solomon must go.
His reign at the top of the "Table" has not unified the tribe. And his ego has prevented him from making the decision that would have shown integrity - to step aside.
Just recently we came across Solomon in the Wellington Airport - he yelled at us and waved his big Solomon finger in our face. He is obviously no fan of Roarprawn and BustedBlonde and we saw first hand why some people believe he is a bully.
It was not the action of a man of dignity.
But we are not scared of him. Instead we just laughed at him. His finger may be big but his mana is puny.
So the election of Tahu Potiki last week and Wally Stone this week means that we will see a change of direction in our tribes politics. We hope that it will mean that Solomon will finally show some humility and step down.
Our dream team would be Wally Stone at the helm with Tahu Potiki as deputy and to ensure that we dont see anymore swinging dicks, that the role of the chair is more clearly defined on governance and not the semi titular head it appears to have become.
We also want to see some of the people who have built their own businesses and shown strong leadership representing Ngai Tahu on boards and organisations around the country instead of the same old tired faces who have been sychophants of Solomon.
We also want to see Ngai Tahu take the lead and form stronger relationships with other iwi so that we can take advantage of the economies of scale that joint ventures with other tribes can offer.
And we want, apart from issues of commercial sensitivy, utter transparency. No more PR spin glossing up the tribes performance - tell it like it is.
We are well pleased with todays events as every Ngai Tahi beneficiary should be. We firmly believe that together Potiki and Stone have the brains, financial prudence and wise leadership to take the tribe forward. Kia Kaha to you both.
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