Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has cracked the door open to a post-election coalition with Te Pāti Māori, saying there are some areas where the parties have "shared views".
He made the comments at his post-Cabinet press conference today. It follows the National Party last week ruling out working with Te Pāti Māori, and a new poll that shows Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori may have the numbers to form a government after the election.
Hipkins said once parties had set out their platforms, Labour would "be more clear on where we see common ground - and where we see that it would be more difficult to work with other parties".
Asked if, based on Te Pāti Māori's current manifesto, if he saw them around the Cabinet table after the election, Hipkins said there were "areas where we have some shared views with the Māori Party".
"In some of the social policy areas, for example, some of the things we're trying to achieve as a government - making sure that we're closing gaps in terms of educational achievement, making sure we're delivering better health outcomes for all New Zealanders, dealing with the underlying causes of socio-economic disadvantage, those are areas where we clearly have some shared objectives in common.
"It may well be, as we get closer to the election, that there are some areas where we don't agree with them, where there are some things that we take off the table in terms of saying, 'no, that's not something that we would be willing to consider'."
He said it was "still very early stages" with many parties' full manifestos still unclear.
"This happens in every election campaign, where there are things where we think they are a no-go zone, that are being proposed by other parties that we might work with after the election, we would be clear about that."
Asked if he was amenable to Te Pāti Māori's desire to change the official name of New Zealand to Aotearoa, Hipkins said he had not given "any official consideration to".
"I'm aware that the name Aotearoa New Zealand is used in a much more widespread manner now than it was 10, 15 years ago, and in some cases people simply call it Aotearoa, depending on the context, and I'm quite relaxed about that.
"In terms of whether we change the official name or not, I actually think more important is what the common usage is, and I think we're seeing increasing common usage of Aotearoa New Zealand and I'm quite comfortable with that."
Te Pāti Māori also had a petition on its website calling for New Zealand to become a republic, with a New Zealander as head of state.
Hipkins said that decision was for the New Zealand public through a referendum and he didn't propose it.
"I'm not going to get into ruling things in or out in terms of coalition discussions after an election, unless we do that before an election, and I'm not doing that today."
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