Marama Fox on the polls: 'Holy crap - come on people, party vote Māori!'

Māori party co-Leader Marama Fox joined Tristram Clayton for a live Q + A at NZME tonight. Photo/Nick Reed

Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox has issued an impassioned plea for Māori votes as polling day approaches - and says the party is open to working with Labour or National.

Tonight's Newshub Reid Research poll put the Māori Party on just 0.4 per cent, while last night's 1 News Colmar Brunton poll was marginally better on 1 per cent.

Speaking at a Facebook Live Q+A with Herald Focus this evening Fox said the recent polls left the party saying "Holy crap! Come on people, party vote Māori!"

One questioner asked whether nine years in a confidence-and-supply arrangement with a National government was the reason Māori had deserted the party.

"Of course it is," Fox said. "In our heyday, we got three per cent of the vote. And it has been whittled away and whittled away because we've been subsumed inside the National Party."

But she also defended what the party had achieved by being at the table for the past nine years, rattling off a list including rheumatic fever screening, recognition of the New Zealand wars, Māori history being recognised in schools, Whānau Ora and the Government now spending $300 million per year on emergency housing.

"We've had $4bn that we can put our hand on and say 'We did that'."

She was equally critical of the "neoliberal" Labour and National parties.

"It's left wing, right wing, same damn bird. It's blue undies, red undies, same damn skidmarks," she said.

"They have ruled this country for 150 years, red and blue parties and we're still at the bottom. They've done nothing to change that."

Fox said the Maori Party was free to work with Labour or National post-election.

"I work across the house all the time. I go and vote for Winnie's bills if it's good for Māori, I vote for the Greens' bills if it's good for Māori. They come to me - all of those parties - to try and get me and change the minds of those Ministers because they know I have the ear of the Minister."

She said she could equally work with either party but did not trust any of them - "the only people I trust is us".

"Here's the difference: National will smile at you, nod politely and use flash words and stab you straight in the chest, and Labour will sit down and smile at you, use nice words, nod and be polite and then stab you in the back. And then they'll twist the knife."