Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, the chair of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency and a former chief executive of the Women's Refuge, has announced that she will contest the general electorate seat of Rotorua for Te Pāti Māori.
Raukawa-Tait, who had also been a Rotorua Lakes councillor for more than a decade, told Q+A that she wanted to be part of a political party that "believes that Māori should be included in the future" of Aotearoa. She made the announcement on Thursday.
"I think right now we're seeing many Māori families that are being left behind. They feel this is as good as it gets. And Te Pāti Māori is absolutely very suited in saying that: 'No, we have a role to play in the future of Aotearoa'," she told Jack Tame.
She said she chose to stand in a general electorate seat because Rotorua is her home and her tribal area. The candidate said she was concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the area, including the growth in emergency housing tenants.
"We run the very real risk of having a city of two halves if we're not careful. So we've got to make sure that we bounce back, but that we are inclusive of everyone," Raukawa-Tait said.
"We've got people who are living in motels, who actually are good families, but they're now being demonised, because you're taking up space on the main street and everything else like that. We've got to help our families".
She said she was not afraid of challenging the two major parties and that she had the support of non-Māori voters as well due to her experience in the region.
"Non-Māori see me as being quite fearless," the candidate said.
National has held the Rotorua seat since 2008. The incumbent MP is Todd McClay.
Raukawa-Tait said her role with Whānau Ora would not conflict with her candidacy, and that she would continue to do her job until the election, including "probably" attending a board meeting.
"At this time, I've got to concentrate on winning the seat, and I may be told to step down. I mean, we're talking about three months. So that's probably just one board meeting," she said.
"[At] Whanau Ora, we don't have the luxury of being able to say 'park yourself up for three months'. The work goes on, I've got a job to do."
Raukawa-Tait has a history of involvement in national politics. She made a bid for the mayoralty of Wellington in 2001, placing sixth. The year after, she joined the Christian Heritage Party and ran as a candidate before walking out of the party after the election.
"I did join that Christian Heritage Party because I do believe in family values, of course, but actually, how naive of me," she said.
"Most politicians believe in family values, I believe, anyway, so it was naive of me to think that that party would have the monopoly on family values. It didn't, but the other thing I noticed is that they were actually extremely judgemental.
"They were judgemental of our families, who they believed never lived as a family unit, and I don't like that, they used words such as abomination. I don't like anything like that."
Q+A with Jack Tame is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
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