By: Mike Hosking | Thursday, July 19, 2012 8:47 AM

Will the Maori Party leave the coalition after last night's meeting with the Prime Minister?

Of course not.

But the only reason the question is ever asked these days is because they made the fatal mistake last year of making the threat of leaving over the asset sales, and the threat caused them a two-fold problem.

One: Given that they didn't leave, and were never really going to, they landed themselves with 'the boy who cried wolf' tag. You only threaten drama if you really mean it. Otherwise the threat in future looks hollow, and if you keep threatening and go nowhere it gets worse than being hollow, it makes you a laughing stock.

And two: It caused them more trouble because having made the threat once, you've given the media fodder to ask the question forever every time it looks even the slightest bit possible there might be a dust up.

Tariana Turia can be as upset she likes over John Key's comments about the Waitangi Tribunal but it should never lead to the sort of headlines, questions and drama she is now immersed in. Being a coalition partner will inevitably mean dispute and argument and alternate views.

But it doesn't mean divorce.

Hence John Key's supreme confidence that no ones going anywhere because behind the smoke that Turia and Sharples have sadly filled the room with lies the simple truth that life in government beats the living daylights out of life anywhere else in politics.

Unless of course you're someone like Hone Harawira or the Greens who can't function with any level of real responsibility and are only truly alive when they're fuelled by the low octane concoction that is opposition. Opposition is easy because all you have to do is moan, and no one holds you accountable.

To their credit Turia and Sharples have seen the riches of government and quite like what it can do for their people, hence they keep coming back.

Making their life hard of course are the myriad of headline grabbers and delusional extremists they sometimes mix with that constantly pull at their shirt tails, espousing the wonders of revolution and anarchy.

Hence occasionally they forget what's useful and what's hot air, and spout forth something that lands them with a meeting with that Prime Minister and a whole lot of questions about walking out.

They might well be offended over that the Prime Minister said about the tribunal and its findings but what the Prime Minster said was factual, and it wasn't the first time he's said it. You can't be marked down for telling the truth. And if that's all it takes to walk out on a deal you weren't in the deal for the right reasons in the first place.

Which is why they're going nowhere.