Leaked memo shows Act not sure how to play Maori card

By RUTH BERRY, Political Reporter

Leaked papers reveal Act is divided over how to spin research it will use to attack spending on Maori - unsure whether to pitch to those wanting to "demonise" Maori or to try to identify with Maori.

Act MPs are holding a special caucus strategy meeting today where they will discuss the tone and timing of the campaign - one of the party's big summer projects.

It is based on a four-month research project by party researcher Roger Styles which Act says suggests Maori get from the Government three times the amount they pay in taxes.

Act believes it will challenge findings made in a Te Puni Kokiri report released this year highlighting Maori's positive contributions.

But the leak is another embarrassment for Act, after last month's revelations about strategy papers prepared for a caucus retreat.

The campaign has already caused an internal ruckus after the drafting of the first of a series of planned press releases, set for January 1, entitled $5 billion Annual Maori Subsidy.

"As working New Zealanders put their feet up for a well-deserved rest these holidays, they should reflect on whether the $5 billion subsidy they have given to Maori over the past year is money well spent," it began.

It went on to claim that "each working New Zealander subsidises Maori $3300 a year".

The release fails to identify how many working New Zealanders are Maori, or how much welfare, health or other Government money is spent on non-Maori.

Act MP Rodney Hide, in whose name the release was drafted, said yesterday that it had been written by a staff member.

Mr Hide said he disliked its tenor and had changed it to focus on the Government's handling of Closing the Gaps instead.

A three-page caucus memo by Act's Maori affairs spokesman, Stephen Franks, circulated last week - entitled Who are the Suckers or Maori as Victims of the Left - reveals the deliberations on handling Maori issues.

In it, Mr Franks said the research would confirm "many New Zealanders' suspicions" and could be fantastic for sending a positive Act message. "Equally it could be a great story for attracting only the mean-spirited and fearful who want to demonise Maori."

Mr Franks said Act might not win votes if it handled the issue badly.

"We should use it to startle attention out of some of the audiences we want to attract, not confirm the impressions of people who will probably vote Winston [Peters, NZ First] or [Labour Cabinet minister John] Tamihere anyway."

Rather than feeding claims "we are gratuitously exulting in bad news about Maori", the releases "might regret that Maori have been seduced into taking instead of making. They are being corrupted and degenerated by welfare", Mr Franks said.

Some might object to identifying "this kind of failure" on a race basis, but "that is to allow the enemy sanctuary".

"I think a way of giving bite to the theme is to identify with Maori. Future generations of Maori will revile their current leadership."

Mr Franks suggests it might be handy to brief some Maori he believed might be supportive, such as Ngai Tahu's Tipene O'Regan and Tahu Potiki and writer Alan Duff.

Yesterday, Mr Franks said he had no comment, but Mr Hide said that aside from the debate between himself and Act staff over his release, there were no tensions.

Media unit head Alan Hitchens, who Mr Hide believed wrote his release, said there were no rifts within the party over the issue.

Stephen Franks' leaked memo

Herald Feature: Maori issues