Turia ready for coalition talk

Tariana Turia

An excited Tariana Turia said she was looking forward to having three other Maori Party colleagues in Parliament and was talking tonight of coalition deals.

Both National leader Don Brash and Prime Minister Helen Clark had checked they had Ms Turia's cellphone number in the days before the election and she was expecting a call to open "negotiations".

Ms Turia, who held her seat of Te Tai Hauauru, said she would take any phone calls then take the proposed deals back to Maori party supporters to discuss who to support. Its support would be based on whose proposed policies would offer the most to Maori.

Ms Turia, who broke from Labour to form the Maori party over the foreshore and seabed legislation, was watching results at her home marae, Whangaehu in Wanganui, with about 600 supporters.

She said: " For a political party formed just 15 months ago, I think we've done really well." 

Fellow co-leader Pita Sharples won the Tamaki Makaurau from Labour's John Tamihere, Te Ururoa Flavell won Waiariki, and Hone Harawira beat Labour's incumbent MP Dover Samuels in Te Tai Tokerau.

The Minister of Maori Affairs, Parekura Horomia is ahead in Ikaroa-Rawhiti.

With the election poised on a knife-edge betwen Labour and National, the Maori Party could hold a crucial position. 

Mr Sharples said he was happy with his party's performance in taking four electorate seats.

Labour MP John Tamihere bowed out of politics after conceding to Mr Sharples.

While Labour overwhelmingly took the party vote in the seat it was the Maori Party co-leader who stormed home with a 1200 vote majority.

But Tamihere was not looking too upset and instead called the loss "liberating".

He said the Maori Party had run an extraordinary campaign and that they were "all over us like a rash".

He said he didn't regret not being on his party's list - which would have saved him - and now looked forward to spending more time with his children, who had all wanted him to lose.

He admitted three things brought his political career to an end - the Maori Party's superior infrastructure, the Foreshore and Seabed Act and "I buggered myself up by going to lunch with (Ian) Wishart."

Mrs Turia said Mr Tamihere's exit from Parliament was a big loss to New Zealand and Maoridom.

"I'm sad to see him go."

She believed Mr Tamihere had made a "huge and positive contribution to West Auckland".

She told the Herald that Mr Tamihere was one of the people within Labour who had shown outstanding leadership.

"He had the ability to lead New Zealand."

Ms Turia said Maori leaders like Mr Tamihere and Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First, were hugely important to Maori and were needed in Parliament.

At his campaign headquarters in Wiri, Pita Sharples was ecstatic, and his wife said she was looking forward to going to Wellington.

Sharples told a crowd of 300 that Maori now had a legitimate voice in Parliament.