Labour MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. Photo / Supplied
Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, Labour’s sole MP from a Māori electorate set out her party’s pitch to Māori voters saying the country could achieve “the promise of mana motuhake Māori – Māori sovereignty ... with a Labour Government".
As Te Pāti Māori implodes, Labour has seen an opportunity to win back some of the seats it lost at the 2023 election, in which it only captured one of the seven seats.
Now, the remaining six are very much in play.
“I know we can once again be kaitiaki, caretakers of all seven Māori seats,” Tangaere-Manuel said.
Tangaere-Manuel was speaking at her party’s annual conference in Auckland today. She was one of two caucus speakers on Saturday morning, the other being finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds.
Tangaere-Manuel’s ambitious speech talked up Labour’s record on Māori issues – a direct challenge to Te Pāti Māori, whose ability to go far further on some policy areas has been attractive to voters in the Māori electorates put off by Labour’s centrism.
She noted the growth of the Māori economy, enhanced by money from Treaty settlements, comparing it to Labour’s Future Fund policy, a state-led investment fund.
Speaking about the Māori economy, she said, “we [Labour] see your moemoea, your dreams to restore the intergenerational wealth, and the health, of your people, and of our whenua.
“Labour doesn’t fear that.
“We support it,” she said.
Tangaere-Manuel even reached back into history and recalled it was a member of the Labour Government that “sought to entrench Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
Geoffrey Palmer, a minister and later Prime Minister in the fourth Labour Government, published a white paper on his Bill of Rights reforms in 1985 that proposed entrenching the Bill of Rights, which would have incorporated the Treaty. In the original version, it would have made the bill’s version of the Treaty supreme law, allowing non-compliant law to be struck down.
The policy was not overly popular with a number of Māori at the time.
As it happened, Palmer’s colleagues did not let him go that far and the end result is a much weaker Bill of Rights Act.
Labour does not currently have a policy to try to entrench the Treaty.
The line was a nod to Te Pāti Māori, which began the year announcing an ambitious constitutional policy of its own, a Treaty Commissioner, to report on whether the Government was complying with Te Tiriti.
Statements from the party were inconsistent on the crucial point of whether the commissioner would be able to strike-down legislation that was non-compliant – a major constitutional change, if true.
In her speech to the conference, Edmonds launched a searing attack on the “wreckage of Christopher Luxon’s broken promises and economic mismanagement” and promised to restore “hope”.
She also addressed some of the perceived failings of the last Labour Government, in which she served as a junior minister.
“We’ve heard the lesson of last term: too much, too fast, and not enough finished.
“People heard the promises – and often supported the intent – but didn’t always see the change in their lives,” she said.
She also promised she would “never waver in my commitment to fiscal responsibility” – a promise that tends to mean eventually achieving a balanced budget.
Act leader David Seymour wasted no time in laying into Labour on that front this morning.
As Labour members gathered, he rushed out a press release drawing attention to the fact Labour has promised to reverse the coalition’s pay equity reforms, which reduced the cost of the scheme by $12.8 billion, by reducing the number of sectors who can enter the scheme and the likely amount they can get under it.
Seymour claimed Labour’s numbers didn’t “stack up”.
“Even just reinstating Labour’s pay‑equity regime will leave a $13b hole in the books, so you can practically hear Hipkins’ new taxes rolling into the station. His capital gains tax doesn’t save him, it will take years to raise a single billion and Hipkins needs 13.
“Higher taxes hurt firms and families, but they also don’t solve our problems. Labour’s previous spending increases failed to deliver better public services. Emergency rooms were left in chaos and schools weren’t teaching kids to read,” he said.