But love him or loathe him, Mr Harawira did not deserve to end his parliamentary career, as he surely has, in such ignominious fashion.
Truth be told his body language suggested that he was having regrets two weeks out from the election. Outraged, and rightly so, that other issues, notably the decriminalisation of cannabis, had supplanted his passion for 'feeding the kids,' he looked increasingly uncomfortable as he campaigned for a party that was clearly happy to use him as a means of winning seats in Parliament but did not share his core values.
He was betrayed by the Internet Party, and he didn't have to see Saturday's election result to know that.
And he deserves huge credit for sticking to his principles, not only in the course of the election campaign but throughout his parliamentary career.
Everything he has said and done since the day he was elected as a member of the Maori Party has been aimed at improving the lot of the people he represents, and therein lies the fatal flaw in the marriage with the Internet Party
.
For all their fine words, Laila Harre and John Minto, who apart from anything else are yesterday's woman and man, hardly the stuff of a bold new political era, are pragmatists, and far from averse to pursuing policies simply for their ability to garner votes. And behind them was the hulking shadow of Dotcom, who wouldn't know what a principle was if he was bitten by one.
Here we have a man who entered this country's politics purely as a means of promoting his personal agenda. He made no secret of the fact that his overarching aim was to destroy the Prime Minister, as he has confessed to destroying others who displeased him in the past, and he was patently prepared to do and say whatever was needed to achieve that.
He was hardly likely to quail at the prospect of decriminalising a drug that Mr Harawira knows better than most has done enormous damage to two generations or more of his constituents.
Long before the election outcome was finalised it had become clear, however, that this new wave of political power wouldn't generate as much as a ripple.
It became clear that the young, not renowned for flexing their political muscle, had declined the invitation to do so once again.
Given the turnout of 77 per cent, Dotcom's chosen demographic simply couldn't be bothered. They were happy to accept his free booze and food, and to chant what he wanted to hear, but registering to vote and finding a polling station was all a bit too much. And thank God for that.
Long-term, the big result of this election wasn't that National managed to increase its share of the vote, albeit marginally, for a third term, that Labour's vote collapsed, that the Greens shed some 37,000 votes from 2011, that Winston Peters won't be deciding who governs, that the Maori Party won only one of the Maori seats, that the Conservatives didn't make the five per cent threshold or that the Aotearoa Legalise cannabis party gained more support than either Act or UnitedFuture.
The most positive outcome in terms of our political well-being is that money couldn't buy votes, and that the reward for cynical manipulation of the electoral system was oblivion.
Had Internet Mana prospered there would have been every prospect of a nightmare in 2017, with all manner of lunatics taking encouragement from Kim Dotcom's exploitation of a system that is already exploited more than enough.
That we have been spared that at the cost of losing Hone Harawira is unfortunate, but at least his demise has served a valuable purpose.
Labour leader David Cunliffe made a similar point on Saturday night, although he lumped the Conservative Party in with Internet Mana.
That might be a little harsh, given that Colin Craig's aspirations appear to be motivated by a genuine desire to enact policies that he and his supporters believe would make this a better country. The same could not be said of Internet.
What policies it did produce were taken from other parties destined for opposition. There was no grand plan for making this a better place.
If there was any plan at all it was to keep the party's founder and funder out of jail.
The Conservative Party might also have a genuine grievance in that in terms of votes it ran fifth on Saturday but didn't win a seat, while the Maori, ACT and UnitedFuture parties gained significantly less support - UnitedFuture collected a derisory 0.2 per cent of the total vote - but will be there.
Not quite in the same league as Social Credit back in the day when it remained seatless after winning much greater popular support under first past the post, but enough to rankle, although that's not to say that the threshold should be lowered.
The last thing our Parliament needs is a swag of minnows that can't win five per cent of the vote but might make three or four.
Meanwhile it's business as usual in Northland, where Mike Sabin had no trouble keeping his seat for National, albeit with a smaller majority than he enjoyed in 2011.
It's hard to say why his majority fell in an election where National proved even more dominant than expected, although Willow-Jean Prime did better for Labour than Lynnette Stewart did in 2011, and Ken Rintoul, while falling well short of his expectations for Focus NZ, would have eaten into his support base. Green candidate David Clendon, whose share of the vote fell 800 short of Pauline Evans' result in 2011, simply followed the Green trend downwards around the country.
Perhaps, like Labour, the Greens, who arguably ran the most focused, effective campaign of them all, paid the price for plotting to tax and spend.
Rather than searching for signs in the tea leaves to explain the election outcome, maybe it's just that a lot of New Zealanders think they already pay enough tax and aren't especially keen to pay more.
Add that to the perception that National hasn't done too badly during a global financial crisis and devastatingly expensive natural calamities, and perhaps the outcome was to have been expected.
It could also be that a lot of voters are tired of hearing about a housing crisis that is hugely exaggerated and doesn't affect them, and of being told that those who work hard to feed, clothe and house themselves and their families should pay more for those who can't, won't or don't.
