Call for National to refrain from contesting Maori seats

By HELEN TUNNAH

A former Maori Affairs Minister, Tau Henare, wants National to back its call to scrap the Maori seats by not standing candidates in them at the next election.

Mr Henare, a former Northern Maori MP who stood for National in Te Atatu at last year's election, said Maori seats created a "second class" of MP and it was ludicrous to keep them in the 21st century.

"As an ex-holder of a [Maori] seat, both under first past the post and MMP, I think they're past their use-by date. It's not because of the mediocre lot that we've got now, it's because my experience as being a Maori seat holder is being marginalised, you can only speak on these issues.

"You really are hamstrung."

National leader Bill English this month called for the seven Maori seats to be scrapped as the party pursues a core policy of one standard of citizenship for all.

National's only Maori MP, Georgina te Heuheu, has said she wants Maori to decide for themselves when they no longer need special representation, but Mr Henare yesterday strongly backed Mr English.

"I'm pro-Maori. I support it 100 per cent," he told Mr English at National's northern regional conference at Auckland's Waipuna Lodge.

"I think you've taken a huge step that this country has been afraid to take because of being labelled racist. We've been too scared of the debate."

Mr Henare said he had never felt like a "real" MP because he did not hold a general seat.

Maori Affairs Minister from 1996-1999, Mr Henare said Maori were being elected through general seats and the list and it would be wrong to equate abolishing the Maori seats with abandoning Maoridom.

"You'd actually have generic policies that would do wonders for Maori, like the forthcoming welfare policy, like education policies."

Mr Henare broke Labour's long-time hold on the Northern Maori seat when he won for New Zealand First in 1993, repeating the win in the newly named Te Tai Tokerau in 1996 before losing the seat in 1999. He was a list and general seat candidate for National last election.

"The first thing that we have to do is not only talk about getting rid of the Maori seats, it's not stand anybody. One, we're not going to win them, but two, you've got to back what you say.

"I think we were kidding ourselves at the last election, we got duped by a number of people in the party that said the Maori vote is ours, we're going to win the seats.

"Get over it."

He said National should follow the lead of NZ First, which opposed retention of the Maori seats and did not stand candidates in them last year.

National's hopefuls were soundly beaten in the Maori electorates last year, with some gathering just a few hundred votes in the traditional Labour strongholds.

Henare said he expected to be accused of being opportunist by backing English.

"Absolutely. They'll say, 'He's just greasing up'. I don't really care. I, for one, am not afraid of the debate."