Labour MP Willie Jackson believes a split within Te Pāti Māori is “inevitable” if internal conflicts aren’t addressed shortly, but he says it’s too early to discount any future collaboration with Labour.
He’s pushing for a meeting with Te Pāti Māori by the end of November in the hopes of getting “some indications on where we’re heading next year” before the election, acknowledging questions of whether the party would be a stable partner for Labour.
But Jackson said Labour would not be “forced into a position to make a decision with regards to any future relationships with them”.
“That internal stuff has to play out. I think it’s still got some way to go, but it’s getting close to terminal, I would say.”
The senior Labour MP has been overseas on a parliamentary trip to Barbados over the past week as trouble within Te Pāti Māori boiled over. He was monitoring it from afar and has spoken with his good friend and Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere in recent days.
Now back at Parliament, Jackson told the Herald it was “sad” to see the private issues come out, particularly relating to MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, whom he knew well.
“She’s been a good MP. We don’t get any joy in watching them killing each other off,” he said on Wednesday.
“From a purely kaupapa sense, I’d like to see them fix it. But if they don’t get together soon, you’d just about think it was all over in terms of a future for her and Te Pāti Māori, which I find sad.”
Te Pāti Māori late on Monday night released a batch of documents making several serious allegations against Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and her high-profile son and activist, Eru Kapa-Kingi. They included allegations of overspending by the MP’s office and her son threatening violence at Parliament.
That followed Eru Kapa-Kingi, a spokesman for the Toitū te Tiriti campaign group, earlier this month attempting to distance the movement from Te Pāti Māori and accusing it of dictatorship-like leadership. His comments came after his mother was demoted as the party’s whip.
Eru Kapa-Kingi is yet to respond directly to the allegations, but posted on social media this morning saying he didn’t “regret a single thing” or intend to “throw stones at anyone”, but instead to “speak truth and stand on kaupapa”.
His mother also hasn’t fully addressed the claims but acknowledged to the Herald there was an “incident” that went through the “usual processes” at Parliament. She didn’t respond to the Herald’s phone call on Wednesday.
Jackson observed that if the internal issues weren’t fixed “quickly”, it could lead to a split within the party, especially if both sides kept having a crack at each other.
“I think it’s inevitable that there will be a split there. I think that’s sad for them. I look at it from a kaupapa Māori perspective,” the MP said.
“I think it looks inevitable that, unless they can bring it together really quickly, in the next week or so, ... that relationship looks just about over, which I think is very sad for them.”
Jackson acknowledged that Tamihere was a friend of his, but said whatever some people say, he had “won six seats for them”.
Asked for his thoughts on Te Pāti Māori’s email outlining the allegations, Jackson said, “Let’s be clear, Eru came out and decided to go after the leadership.
“I’m not surprised that the leadership, and that’s [Tamihere, Kiri Tamihere, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer] ... that they would respond.
“I think a few people are surprised that they’ve responded so harshly, and obviously it was going to get into the media, but that’s their style.”
People in Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s seat of Te Tai Tokerau “are thinking that it’s probably just about terminal unless they can patch it up,” Jackson claimed.
He said there was also “a section who are not happy with the leadership”. There have been reports that Te Tai Tonga electorate branch wanted a vote of no confidence in Tamihere and the executive leadership.
“But it looks like overwhelmingly that the majority are happy with the leadership ... it’ll be fascinating to see what happens in the next few weeks.”
Jackson, whose experience in Māori politics goes back decades, including his time in the Mana Motuhake party and Labour, said internal issues were not “uncommon”. He noted the Māori Party had a split in 2011, when Hone Harawira went off and formed Mana.
He said he found it “amusing” that people suggested just because Te Pāti Māori have “all these internals, therefore Labour can’t do a deal with them”.
“They’re not the first party to have internals,” Jackson added.
The MP said, “We’re not all saying, ‘oh, it’s all over, we can’t even do a relationship,’ just because the Prime Minister said you can’t do a relationship. I mean, how crazy is that? Why would we discount them as a possibility? I don’t know what sort of relationship.
“Why would we discount them just because they’ve got some internals going? Even if Mariameno splits, why would we discount them?”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has made clear Te Pāti Māori has “some work to do internally if they want to be part of an alternative Government”. On Tuesday, he said, “At the moment, it is not clear how many Māori parties there are."
Jackson said Hipkins had taken a “very responsible line” as “the public want to see some stability there”.
“We’re looking at Government, so we do want some stability there and some assurances,” he said.
“One of the things that I’ll be pushing for is for us to meet with them. Might try to tie [that] up before the end of November ... just so we can get some indications on where we’re heading next year.”
Members of the Government have called on Labour to rule Te Pāti Māori out of a future governing arrangement, but Labour has said it will make those types of decisions clear closer to the election. On current polling, Labour would need Te Pāti Māori to form a Government.
Jackson pushed back on the calls from the Government, suggesting the likes of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon were in no position to make such suggestions about how to deal with minor parties, given criticisms of Luxon’s own coalition.
“We’ve all been talking for the last two or three weeks [about] the state of Te Pāti Māori and then the inevitable question of, would they be a stable partner for us? You have [National’s] Nicola Willis and Luxon saying we’ve got to disconnect from them.
“Why? Because they are having some internals. It would suit them, because it would take away an opportunity with us in terms of numbers.”
Willis on Tuesday said it was “disturbing to see civil conflict within a party”.
“A party that can’t manage itself certainly can’t have a role in managing the country. Chris Hipkins should rule them out today. He should have done it yesterday. Te Pāti Māori are a recipe for division in New Zealand, division within themselves, and unstable Government.”
Jamie Ensor is a senior political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist this year for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.