Act leader David Seymour is criticising Te Pāti Māori for bringing politics into the attack on Hauraki-Waikato candidate Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who came home recently to find vandalism and a threatening letter.
And while Seymour rejected claims that he was chasing racist voters, he conceded that anti-Māori voters might be drawn to his rhetoric in the same way that someone who is anti-Pākehā might be drawn to rhetoric from Te Pāti Māori.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has hit back, saying the attack on Maipi-Clarke was “extremely politically motivated”, prompting the need for the party to release a statement calling out politicians.
The statement said: “This escalation of danger is what happens when right-wing politicians race-bait and fearmonger for votes. They have emboldened this type of behaviour.”
It was the third incident at Maipi-Clarke’s home in a week. At number four on Te Pāti Māori’s list, the 21-year-old candidate for Hauraki-Waikato may become the youngest MP in 170 years.
Seymour said he was “absolutely disgusted” when he learned of the attack, but took umbrage with the statement about the “right-wing politicians”.
“It’s not accurate. That’s a political attack. We stand absolutely beside all of our colleagues who face any kind of political violence. We’re totally opposed to that. But politicising this kind of thing, I think, leads to further difficulties,” he told the Herald.
He noted that Labour MP Angela Roberts, who was slapped after a political debate in Taranaki, publicised what had happened but did not politicise it. The National Party has also referred a number of incidents to police without firing any political shots.
“The fact that they’ve been gone out and attacked other political parties when actually there’s no connection so far as we’re aware - that is a real problem in my view,” Seymour said.
But Ngarewa-Packer said there was a connection between the attack and politics - just not one she could talk about given the active police investigation.
“We can’t give details, but we can assure that it was extremely politically motivated. We wouldn’t go out and say it was politically motivated if we didn’t have strong support in that statement.”
She didn’t resile from the statement, adding that she included National, NZ First and Act as parties using language to negatively target Māori - which all three parties have rejected.
“They’ve all bounced off each other. Act have led the charge, and we see NZ First trying to appeal to a certain cohort that exists, this underbelly of racism that’s hopefully very small,” Ngarewa-Packer told the Herald.
“It’s interesting that National are trying to pull back from it, but you can’t negate what you’ve allowed to happen for the last three years - the degree of racism that has come into politics and the way that it’s been used to corral voters.”
She said the party was having discussions with police about increasing security for the rest of the campaign.
“We want our youngest potential politician to feel that she can be herself and not have to look behind her back.”
Race has become a central issue in the election this week, with Labour leader Chris Hipkins accusing Act and NZ First of playing the race card, and criticising National for wanting to work with Act and being open to NZ First.
“There’s clearly some parties seeking to divide New Zealanders,” Hipkins said yesterday.
In the second leaders’ debate, Hipkins read out a comment he described as racist from NZ First candidate Rangitata candidate Rob Ballantyne about having the “courage to cut out your disease and bury you permanently”. NZ First leader Winston Peters has defended the comment, saying it wasn’t about Māori, but co-governance.
Peters has also dismissed any suggestion that his party has used any race-baiting, or was responsible for making life more dangerous for any candidates of any party.
Asked to comment on the attack on Maipi-Clarke, he said he would answer questions after he found out more of the facts but “whatever it was, it wasn’t a home invasion”. He added that the attack on Roberts was “unacceptable”.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw, who himself has been assaulted in the street, also waded in. “Politicians using hateful language need to understand it emboldens others and erodes democracy. The consequences can be significant.”
National leader Christopher Luxon condemned any threats or any violence on any candidate, their family or property.
He said the party had referred “a number of serious instances” during the campaign to police. He wouldn’t elaborate further, but the Herald understands they relate to gangs, burglaries and a dog attack resulting in an injury.
Asked if anyone might feel emboldened by rhetoric in the campaign, Luxon side-stepped the question and said it was important for all political parties to say they didn’t want to see division.
“We argue issues, but we do not need to make it personal. We do not need to make it negative. We do not need to create fear-mongering.”
Seymour said he did not want the vote of anyone who was racist or anti-Māori, but he conceded some might be drawn to rhetoric such as “one law for all”.
“Equally someone that is anti-Pākehā could be attracted to a lot of the rhetoric that the Māori Party have put out saying that Māori are genetically superior (a comment made three years ago in relation to sports funding for Māori by former Ikaroa-Rāwhiti candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth),” he said.
“Any party will attract a range of people, and people understand your message differently, but it applies to the Māori Party, it applies to Act, it applies to National and Labour.”
In a public meeting to a mostly-empty high school gym in Queenstown yesterday, Seymour told 50 to 60 attendees his interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi was that Māori surrendered sovereignty so they could have, according to article three, the “same rights and duties” as everyone. Act wants the next government to define the principles of the treaty and put them to a vote in a referendum, which Māori claim would push race-relations backwards.
Seymour said Act would push for the same rights and opportunities for everyone in New Zealand, regardless of whether they arrived in New Zealand 900 years ago or nine years ago. This is despite Māori customary rights being recognised in Act’s policy on the Resource Management Act. “Property owners’ legitimate expectations, established through years of law and practice, should be respected,” it says. “This includes customary rights.”
Ngarewa-Packer said there was nothing in her rhetoric that could be interpreted as anti-Pākehā in her language.
“Tangata whenua have rights and interests and others may not like that. They may not understand that. I get that, but that doesn’t mean that we should be in a position where we’re being targeted and violated.
“Putting this out was about letting the nation know this is what our young had to contend with. Let’s all do better.”
Parties released a flurry of policies yesterday, including Labour’s Rainbow manifesto which included legislation to improve adoption and surrogacy laws for Rainbow people, National’s plan to scrap the Clean Car Discount within 100 days of taking office, NZ First endorsing Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s manifesto for Auckland, and Act’s platform to help small businesses.
The latter included helping them with anti-money laundering compliance, stopping minimum wage increases for three years, and scrapping January 2 as a public holiday (a trade-off for the new Matariki holiday), to which Hipkins said Seymour “wants to steal summer”.
Seymour also told the meeting in Queenstown that he was “frustrated” with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster but politicians couldn’t interfere with the appointment unless Coster did something particularly egregious.
After the meeting, he told the Herald he supported National’s plan to index benefit levels to inflation rather than average wage growth, which economists say could see beneciaries going backwards or even lead to a “recipe for real social disaster”.
Act’s alternative Budget had benefit levels rising in line with average wage growth, but Seymour said he had no objection to National wanting to use inflation, which would see government spending - and welfare payments - falling by $500 million a year.
“It’s one of the few areas where they are actually promising to go further than us.”
Today Peters, Seymour and National’s Todd McClay are speaking at the Groundsell NZ meeting in Auckland, while the Greens are releasing an independent fiscal review of its policy priorities.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery and is a former deputy political editor.
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