Te Pāti Māori Warned Election Strategy Could Put Māori Seats At Risk

Lillian
Hanly Political Reporter

Te
Pāti Māori is being warned its election
strategy could put the Māori seats at risk.

On
Sunday, Te Pāti Māori announced it would be campaigning
for candidate votes only, telling voters to give their party
vote to the left bloc parties such as Labour and the
Greens.

The strategy could lead to the creation of an
overhang, where there are more seats in
Parliament.

Labour’s Māori campaign chair Willie
Jackson was asked on Tuesday if Te Pāti Māori’s strategy
risked the legitimacy of the Māori seats in the eyes of the
public, to which he agreed.

Jackson said it threatened
a backlash against the Māori seats that could lead to their
abolition “when you start working the system like
that”.

He thanked the party for giving Labour more
party votes, but made it clear Labour wouldn’t be
reciprocating in terms of the candidate vote.

Jackson
acknowledged that Māori voters have in the past selected a
candidate that was unlikely to make it in on the
list.

Just
last year in the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, Oriini
Kaipara had a resounding victory against Peeni Henare, who
remained in Parliament anyway.

But Jackson didn’t
think that voters would do the same again because there’d
been “a lot of divisions” in Te Pāti Māori.

“You can
buy into that strategy if every everything’s working well,
but they’re not even voting for themselves.”

Te Pāti
Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said Jackson’s
comments were a “real shame”.

“He’s running a campaign
of trying to bring up past pains and gain some leverage of
that for his own campaigning.”

Ngarewa-Packer said the
reality was “we needed to be smarter if we’re really
intentional of getting this government out”.

She
said Labour and Te Pāti Māori were “different
movements”.

“Their focus is to grow their party,
whereas our focus is to make sure that we stop the pain that
our people are feeling.

“We’re now a movement that’s
determined by our people, and that’s what we’ve been told to
focus on, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Ngarewa-Packer
said she wasn’t worried about risking a backlash that could
to pressure for the abolition of the Māori seats in a
future government.

She said the party was “utilising
the power of the Māori roll”.

“We’re utilising the
rules within MMP that other parties have
utilised.”

She suggested those making commentary that
the Māori seats would lose public support were frightened
at the increase of the number of voters on the Māori
roll.

“We’ve got general seats that are obviously not
growing, and so we’re being smart as Māori, and I don’t
think that that’s anything to be frightened of.”

The
Greens were also asked about the issue, and co-leader Marama
Davidson said the best strategy was for all parties and
candidates to “put our ideas on the table” for voters to
choose.

“People deserve to choose the best
representative for their electorate.”

Davidson said
there’d never been an agreement or strategy between the
Greens and Te Pāti Māori, though she said there’d been a
mention of their strategy.

But the Greens would be
backing their own candidates in the Māori electorates, she
said.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the
intentional strategy to create an overhang was a
“disgrace”.

“Here they are perverting the whole
democratic system. It underscores the Electoral Commission’s
original prospect when they said that in time it would be
proved that the Māori seats were not needed.

“The
Māori party just proved that.”

It
comes after former National and ACT leader Don Brash made a
similar strategic suggestion, as a way of “guaranteeing a
centre-right government”.

Brash, who also founded
Hobson’s Pledge, suggested on The Platform last week
that those wanting the coalition government back in power
could vote for National with their electorate vote, except
in Epsom and Tāmaki (held by ACT MPs), and give their party
vote to either ACT or New Zealand First.

“The centre
right could win this election comfortably,” he
said.

“The right would be
unstoppable.”

National’s former campaign chair Chris
Bishop was asked about Brash’s strategy, but he dismissed
it.

“I think voters would punish that kind of
game-playing.

“We’ve got no intention of doing
that.”

He said if voters wanted to keep the
government, party vote National, if they wanted to change
the government, vote for somebody else.

“It’s actually
not that
complicated.”

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