The Māori Party won't endorse either Labour or National in a potential coalition Government, newly announced Māori Party candidate John Tamihere said today.
Mr Tamihere, a former Labour MP and current chief executive of Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency, will be standing in Auckland, up against Labour MP Peeni Henare.
He told Q+A this morning that he would be running for the seat after 35 years of working to put in place programmes and policies to uplift Māori, and to support Whanau Ora.
“You’ve got a Government that has a minister that hasn’t once supported it," he told host Jack Tame.
"Our leadership, our woman leadership – our dames assailed the Prime Minister over that. They’ve just had a response back from her endorsing Mr Henare’s approach to Whanau Ora.
“It’s a sense of betrayal of our people up and down the country, because it’s been audited and reviewed. It’s the only policy in the whole suite of Government that works for us.”
Mr Tamihere said while Mr Henare has a majority of 3800 votes as per the last election, he wasn’t concerned due to his strong ties to the community.
“The Māori Party has always had a base vote of 50 per cent minimum in every election, and in previous elections, obviously, took this seat. I lost it when I was in Labour, so it’s got a very solid base," he said.
“I actually have lived and worked in that community from the get-go, and so I’m very well known. The present incumbent hasn’t, so it’s going to be a doozy.
"The Māori voice gets subsumed in Labour, because the command and control system of Labour and National is a non-Māori control mechanism."
However Mr Tamihere said his decision to run for the seat wasn't born from a personal vendetta against Mr Henare.
“We have a major contest of ideas. I’m a great believer, in the modern era, in devolution into the communities. [Labour] want state control.”
While previously working as a Labour MP, Mr Tamihere said that the leaders of the new Māori Party should state who they are prepared to enter into a coalition with.
He's since called the move “a tad premature".
“You’ve got to concentrate on connecting back into your own community and winning your community’s support. The community needs to know that we are the sole advocate for them. That’s point one. Two, we’ve got to win the seats.
“Neither [Labour or National] have been great, right? So it’s the best of what devil … You don’t know until all the votes are in.
“I ran the ball up hard for my team. I was in the Labour Party team when that question was asked. I made a mistake, right? I got assimilated, and I got subjugated, and I know what assimilation looks like, and I was a bit of a sell-out.
"I accept that, so I was wrong. I was wrong. I’ve now crystallised a different position and a better-informed position.”
Mr Tamihere also revealed that he doesm't want to be co-leader of the party.
“I can’t seize on that, and it’s unbecoming for me to do that. If I was in the Labour Party, I’d say, ‘Yeah. Hell yeah, I want to be the boss’, but the Māori Party, you just can't do that, and so there’s a different process.”
He added that the Māori Party is funded by their people, adding, “We’re not for sale to any sector group. We’re not for sale to any rich pākehā donors.”
However, he said the party will take funding, so long as they are “honest enough to put your name on it.”
Mr Tamihere also called for Whanau Ora not to be "destroyed by stealth."
“When the Prime Minister talks about well-being and the Prime Minister talks about poverty shift and changes, you can’t have 30,000 young Māori, aged between 14 and 24, not in education, training or employment, because they’ve got nowhere else to go but to gangs and to prisons.
“We, as a country, have to say to our pākehā brothers and sisters that we need your help to lift ourselves, but we don’t need you standing over us, regulating us all the time. We’re big enough now.
"Change comes from within and to-Māori, by-Māori, for-Māori change. We cannot assert standards and values in our communities unless our leadership does. A pākehā leadership can’t and will never get carried.”
He said while he is uncertain if he has the discipline to run a successful campaign, he would “rather have a lack of diplomacy and tell the truth, rather than being dodgy with it.”
“I do get into a bit of strife, even at home with my marriage, by telling the truth, so I err on the side of honesty as opposed to dressing it up in grey zones.”
Mr Tamihere said while critics suggested he was ill-disciplined in last year’s mayoral campaign, which saw him lose to Phil Goff by 100,000 votes, he was hammered by social media for his audacity to express himself.
“Here’s the problem I’ve got. Because I have the audacity and the temerity to stand and to express myself as a working-class West Aucklander and a Māori to boot, you get hammered for it in this day of social media and the like.
"So I am who I am. I’m out of a working class. I’ve got 12 brothers and sisters. I’ve got six kids. So I bring that flavour."
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