Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris has doubled down on his controversial social media post about race – at odds with his party's earlier apology.
In the final days of the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, Ferris posted on Instagram, criticising Labour for having "Indians, Asians, Black and pākeha" campaigning for its candidate Peeni Henare.
The post drew the ire of Labour's Willie Jackson, who called it "racist", prompting an apology from Te Pāti Māori, which said its movement had always been for "the people".
In a post to Instagram on Tuesday night, Ferris said seeing members of other ethnic communities campaigning for Peeni Henare should be "unacceptable".
"The Māori seats are for Māori voices only. They're for the Māori people to decide... and then I heard Willie Jackson in the news talking about how 'unacceptable that was from Tākuta' and 'should know better' and 'we care about everyone in the Labour Party."
"Guess what Willie, I don't give a crap who you care about or what you care about. In the Māori seats, it's about the Māori people, Māori only," he said.
Ferris said the initial post was "homogenising Māori as a minority", which Labour was doing in "plain daylight".
Ferris said "homogenising" Māori meant making Māori appear as just another one ethnic group.
"They're homogenising Māori whilst we are fighting for our Māori seat... homogenising means you're making Māori appear as just another one of these ethnic groups in the Māori seat.
"That should blow your mind because it's completely unacceptable and we need to get to a level where we recognise it as unacceptable and we're happy to say it's unacceptable."
Another reason people got their "knickers in a twist" was because the post was written in English, he said.
"If I had made that post in te reo Māori and said, 'titiro whānau, anei te Reipa, whakamahi ana e te Īniana, e te Āhia, e te Mangumangu, me te iwi pākeha hei tango e te tūru Māori mai te ringaringa o te Māori', no one would have had a problem with that.
"The English language struggles to identify other iwi, people's races. The English language doesn't like it, and the reason that they don't like it is because there's a lot of colonial violence attached to it."
Ferris said there was a "hangover" from periods of colonial violence where the English and their language had oppressed Mangumangu (Black), Āhia (Asian) and Īniana (Indian) people.
"The English language always shies away from identifying those people and so they just refer to them as ethnic, ethnics [or] ethnic minorities." he said.
"That's why saying it in Māori, no problem. There's no historical hangover in te reo Māori to name an iwi."
Last week, Jackson told RNZ Māori had relationships with all races.
"He seems to be offside not only with his leader but also with the new Queen. He needs to grow up."
Ferris said he had received many messages of support, and whānau should "not be shy" to speak up.
"They are trying to make us vanish. They are trying to make us disappear into just a small minority in our own country whilst we fight for the damn seats that are there for us, expressly for us."
Ferris and Labour have been approached for comment.
A spokesperson for Te Pāti Māori said the party would address the post "in due course".
Ministers weigh in
In a post to social media, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said Ferris had "lost the plot" by doubling on his comments.
"If the Māori Party leadership has apologised and called his first racist rant unacceptable, what do they now think of Ferris flipping them the bird and doubling down?
"He also said that Labour's campaign was 'taking a Māori seat away from Māori'. So now he is saying that Peeni Henare is the 'wrong type of Maori'."
Peters said Ferris' "arrogance and destructive attitude" had placed a wedge between Labour and Te Pāti Māori, and he was now a liability to his party.
National's Chris Bishop said the post was "racist, pure and simple".
By Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira for rnz.co.nz
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