Leader of the House Grant Robertson is asked about The Speaker's decision over the defection of Meka Whaitiri, and whether the waka jumping legistlation is a farce. Video / Mark Mitchell
OPINION
If Meka Whaitiri had done what she originally said she would do, she would be retiring from Parliament this election rather than switching parties and seeking re-election.
She once said she wanted to be an MP for no more than 10 years, which is up this year.
“If Iget 10 years, I’m going to kick myself out,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today in 2014.
She won the eastern Māori seat of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti in a 2013 byelection following the death of former Māori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia, her former boss and mentor.
After winning the seat again at the next general election, she said she would limit herself to 10 years.
Instead, she is the centre of political attention for kicking herself out of Labour yesterday and into the arms of the Māori Party, without giving many reasons besides it being the “right thing to do.”
Her former colleagues in Labour’s Māori caucus appear to be more forgiving of her than former Mana Motuhake and Alliance leader Sandra Lee-Vercoe, who said it was selfish and appalling.
Her constituents had never needed her more in a position of power than now given she was overseeing the recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle, Vercoe-Lee told Waatea News.
“They are sitting under sludge and slash, the recovery is slow and she as minister had her hands on the lever.”
That is what many of Whatiri’s colleagues will be thinking but not saying.
The defection, including ousting the existing Māori Party candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth, occurred on the 10th anniversary of Horomia’s burial.
He was a much loved Labour legend of the Helen Clark Government, and in Whaitiri’s maiden speech she paid tribute to him, saying he “taught me to love our people, to serve our people, and, amongst all else, ‘hold the line.’”
MP Meka Whaitiri with former Māori Party candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth at Waipatu Marae just before the MP's defection. Photo / Kerry Marshall/Getty Images
Labour’s Māori MPs have so far refused to criticise her for the sudden departure - and she has not criticised them.
The Māori caucus is not always the cohesive, tub-thumping united team depicted by the Opposition - except in times of adversity. And they stuck by Whaitiri in the first term when she was suspended and then sacked as a minister over an altercation with a staff member.
Even before then, the minister had been considered stroppy and difficult.
Whaitiri always disputed the allegations that she had grabbed a press secretary by the arm at a function in Gisborne, causing a bruise.
There was no disagreement that Whaitiri had taken her outside to reprimand her for not alerting her to a standup with then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, which other ministers were at.
The reviewer, however, found that on the balance of probabilities, the staffer’s version was the more likely explanation and Jacinda Ardern sacked Whaitiri, with the prospect of an eventual return.
She largely took her medicine and agreed to review her style. After rebuffing efforts to recruit her to the Māori Party before the last election, she regained a ministerial post in Labour’s second term but again outside cabinet.
Whatever private resentment she holds at her lack of promotion to the full cabinet, Whaitiri, now aged 58, was a very comfortable fit within the Labour Party and she threw herself into the job.
As much as any of the Māori MPs, she talked of the pride in being in Labour and in its achievements.
She was particularly passionate about her job as Associate Agriculture Minister, and often and capably deputised for Damien O’Connor in Parliament when he was overseas.
She spoke energetically in the House, on sports bills, Treaty settlements, on seizures by Customs, her main portfolio.
Meka Whaitiri speaking in Parliament in 2018, shortly after being suspended as a minister. Photo / Mark Mitchell
She spoke with conviction and a sense of inclusivity about working with the agricultural sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She always looked for common ground and avoided absolutes like a moderate.
The hardest part about defecting to the Māori Party may be yet to come for Whaitiri.
She was such a comfortable fit, it may become apparent only when the feel-good factor of her welcome to the Māori Party fades and she has to adjust to being a member of a more radical party.
The most passionate speech Whaitiri has given this term was in the third reading of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill in which her loyalty to working-class New Zealanders and unions was laid bare.
She was raised in Whakatu, near Hastings, where her father, Wiremu, was a freezing worker. She talked about the devastating effects on communities of the Employment Contracts Act, which deregulated the labour market.
Her mother, Mei, as a schoolgirl was a model for the famous Pania of the Reef statue in Napier (though not topless like the statue). Her mother and two sisters worked for Silver Fern Farms.
Meka Whaitiri, one of five children, began her working life working in shearing gangs on the East Coast and at Whakatu Freezing Works.
A former head girl of Karamu High School, She went on to Victoria University where she got a BA and a Masters in Education.
When she joined the Department of Labour, where she eventually rose to a deputy secretary role, Horomia was her boss. She became an adviser to him and then became chief executive of Ngāti Kahungunu iwi, before succeeding him in 2013.
She was a mother to two teenage boys at the time and her partner at the time, whom she mentioned in her maiden speech, was Kiri Allan, now Minister of Justice.
The pair remain on good terms and Allan was dispatched to Hawke’s Bay on Tuesday to dissuade her when rumours of Whaitiri’s defection emerged.
But Whaitiri was adamant, and the line was broken.
