Tensions high over controversial Oranga Tamariki and Māori wards bills - Audrey Young

'I’m not going to stand here and justify how I was raised' - Minister for Children Karen Chhour during Question Time at Parliament on May 21, 2024. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.

OPINION

This is a transcript of Audrey Young’s subscriber-only Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click here, select ‘Premium Politics Briefing’ and save your preferences. For a step-by-step guide, click here.

Welcome to the Politics Briefing in a highly charged week as two controversial bills affecting Māori progressed in Parliament.

The repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act for children in care was debated on Tuesday and got very intense and personal.

The most extreme language was used by Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi when she again referred to Government policies causing the “extermination” of Māori, although she expanded on the meaning of it.

“The parties of the Government have doubled down on the extermination agenda for Māori,” she said. “My use of that word [earlier this month] made a lot of you uncomfortable, and I’m glad to hear it.”

She described the repeal of section 7AA as being: “A targeted extermination of our babies ... exterminating any ounce of culture, identity and any sense of their Māori selves.”

Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: 'My use of [the word extermination] made a lot of you uncomfortable, and I’m glad to hear it.'

Removing section 7AA from the legislation removes the part of the act setting out the obligations of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki including having regard to the whakapapa of Māori children and the responsibilities of their iwi and hapū.

Children’s Minister Karen Chhour believes that section has allowed Oranga Tamariki to place the ethnicity of the carers ahead of the wellbeing of the child in placement decisions. In the House on Wednesday, she hit back at a post by Te Pāti Māori on X that was extremely personal towards Chhour.

“I have seen a statement claiming that if section 7AA was around when I was a child, I would have been ‘raised Māori’ and would have been connected with my whakapapa and would have known my Māoritanga,” Chhour told the House. “The statement goes on to say that I was raised Pākehā with a ‘disconnection and disdain’ for my own people and that my experience is exactly why we need section 7AA.

“I’m not going to stand here and justify how I was raised, but I am also not going to let anyone else, especially Te Pāti Māori, think that they can tell my story for me, especially when they have no idea what they’re talking about.”

The Government also held the first reading debate on a bill reintroducing a local poll and veto on Māori wards established by councils. Since Labour removed the binding poll in 2021, 45 councils have introduced Māori wards and will be required to have them put to a local referendum. Labour was scathing in its opposition, saying it was racially motivated and was a requirement for Māori wards only, not for rural wards. What is clear is that Labour introduced the controversial change straight after the 2020 election without having mentioned it in the campaign.

Team Luxon-Willis - who’s really the boss?

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon sings the praises of Finance Minister Nicola Willis at the National Party’s regional conference in Palmerston North on May 19. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Ahead of next week’s Budget, political editor Claire Trevett had a joint interview this week with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis, and it makes for a very amusing read. It is evident that Willis, while conceding who is boss, dominates the conversation and possibly the relationship. There is a priceless moment when she reveals who Luxon has a portrait of in his new photo frame (see below).

Meanwhile, the Privileges Committee met in private yesterday to discuss the complaints about aggressive behaviour in Parliament by Green MP Julie Anne Genter and is due to meet again next week.

Quote unquote

“This is the hangover after the wild party. And, as everyone knows, the wilder the party, the longer and messier the hangover” - Finance Minister Nicola Willis in her last pre-Budget speech on what she calls the post-Covid-19 party.

“I think everybody will come away a bit disappointed ... but hopefully it is setting the right direction” - Former Finance Minister Steven Joyce on the Budget (Newstalk ZB).

Micro quiz

“I was a bit of a convert” - which MP said that about Helen Clark after meeting her recently? (Answer below.)

Brickbat

Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March swore while Labour MP Phil Twyford was speaking during a debate on immigration. Photo / RNZ

Goes to Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March for his F-bomb during an interjection on Tuesday. “Come on! F***! You voted for the bill without those amendments.” Incidentally, Barbara Kuriger, who was in the chair at the time, has told me she did not hear it and, if she had, she would have required the MP to apologise for such unparliamentary language. He said it after Phil Twyford said Labour was supporting a bill on mass arrivals only because of safeguards that were being proposed.

Bouquet

Gisborne's Waipaoa River burst its banks in several places during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / LINZ

Goes to the MPs playing netball and rugby at a sports tournament in Gisborne tomorrow to fundraise for farmers still recovering from Cyclone Gabrielle.

Latest political news and views

Luxon-Willis interview: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis talk Budget “surprises” and teamwork in their first joint interview.

Budget cuts: Nicola Willis has confirmed there will be further cuts in the Budget, on top of the cuts she has announced to fund the Government’s tax policy.

MP expenses: Judith Collins is the Government’s biggest-spending minister on overseas travel, shelling out almost $150,000 in the first quarter.

Mining: Resources Minister Shane Jones has released a draft strategy for mineral mining, aiming to double the sector’s export value to $2 billion by 2035.

Poll: Voters want big-ticket items in the new Budget to be paid for by spending cuts – not more taxation or borrowing, a new poll has found.

MP investments: Act MP Todd Stephenson, who has been charged with advising party leader David Seymour on Pharmac, has investments in pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Analysis: Audrey Young profiles Act leader David Seymour’s inner circle - and the sometimes surprising political figures who have inspired him.

MP gifts: Former PM Chris Hipkins was gifted a bicycle by Chinese Premier Li Qiang while visiting China last year, but it hasn’t made its way to New Zealand yet.

Maiden speech: “The time is now” - Francisco Hernandez, NZ’s second-ever Filipino MP, has made his maiden speech in Parliament.

Labour rules: Discussion at the Labour Party’s regional conferences has centred around the leadership’s ability to make “captain’s calls” on policy.

Subsidy scrapped: Housing Minister Chris Bishop has confirmed the Government will scrap the first home grant scheme.

Mental health funding: Mike King’s Gumboot Friday counselling service for young people will receive $24 million over four years as part of the Government’s upcoming Budget.

Section 7AA repeal: A bill to repeal section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act has passed its first reading following an impassioned debate in Parliament.

Opinion: National MP David MacLeod’s donations paperwork stuff-up will hurt but not end his ministerial hopes, writes Claire Trevett.

Quiz answer: Act leader David Seymour (see story above).

For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast.