Why is Labour leader Chris Hipkins defending Te Pāti Māori MPs and trying to get their three-week suspension down to just one day?
Does Hipkins have a political death wish? Does he wish to stay in opposition forever?
The more Labour defends and entertains Te Pāti Māori, the more unelectable a future Labour-led Government becomes.
Hipkins needs to cut and run. He’s far too close to them and I wonder if this is his idea to keep them in the tent or is his MP Willie Jackson running the strategy and therefore running the show?
My take is that Jackson is advising Hipkins to keep the Māori Party close. To me, it’s madness. When will Hipkins show some leadership?
If Labour wants to be a wide-ranging centrist party then it won’t attract hard-working families and small-town provincial voters by entertaining Te Pāti Māori’s theatrics. Hipkins should have ruled them out months ago, saying their brand is divisive and their anger and hate directed at Pākehā New Zealand is unacceptable.
As long as he is willing to work with Te Pāti Māori, Hipkins is destined not only to stay in opposition, he may well find he has a target on his back and is replaced as leader. Maybe he and his MPs need to get out more and hear what people are saying about Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
Even Jackson, Labour’s senior Māori MP, admits conservative and older Māori voters are unhappy with what they perceive as an arrogant, dismissive and confrontational style of politics. And that’s without mentioning how anti-Pākehā they have become.
The only time Labour has attempted to do the right thing was when Jackson told them they should have apologised for their rude dismissal of Parliament’s Privileges Committee findings. But Jackson’s bark was way louder than his bite and the message was lost when he said he “loved them” and voters still “loved them”.
Do they? I suggest Jackson needs to get out in the real world. New Zealanders, on the whole, find them offensive, rude, obnoxious, racist and arrogant. They see them as rude and unwilling to play by the rules that everyone else has to follow.
Most of New Zealand does not vote for them; not all Māori vote for Te Pāti Māori. Just because someone is Māori does not mean they automatically vote for Te Pāti Māori; Māori votes are spread all around the political sphere.
Te Pāti Māori appears to be targeting young, dissatisfied voters and seems hellbent on protesting and pushing a separatist agenda, which most New Zealanders simply won’t accept. They’re becoming a group of MPs that mainstream New Zealand love to hate because they appear increasingly radical, angry and unconstructive.
Labour, if it’s seriously thinking about Te Pāti Māori as a coalition partner, might want to consider the recent Federated Farmers-funded poll of 1000 rural New Zealanders, carried out by Curia Research. It showed if an election were held today, National would get 54%, Act 19%, NZ First 8%, Labour 3%, Greens 2% and Te Pāti Māori 1%. Undecideds were 12%.
Look, it’s no surprise that National is at 54%. It used to be higher among farmers, but Act has made huge in-roads into the rural vote. Act Leader David Seymour will be buoyed by those results and hope they play out like that across the general electorates.
But Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori can only muster 6% between them among farmers. Let me repeat that: 6%.
I am astonished by how little support there is in the provinces for Labour, which was once a mainstream party. Surely this should be one of Labour’s biggest concerns. If it’s lost Auckland – Labour’s 2023 election results were their worst in Auckland since 1996 – and it’s lost the provinces, what’s left?
Labour has failed to listen to farmers, and their political allies are seen as completely unacceptable by farmers.
But while farmers, a narrow section of our society, have given the left a massive cold shoulder, voters in a second, broader nationwide Curia Poll funded by the Taxpayers Union are yet to get spooked by linking Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
In this poll, Labour nudges past National at 34.8 and National is down to 33.5. Is it a lacklustre Luxon and a struggling economy that keeps Hipkins in the race? Voters were largely unmoved by the Budget and remain unconvinced about Luxon, who still comes across awkward and lacks authenticity. In saying that, what has Labour done to deserve almost 35%? It’s kept its head down – and done nothing.
On the results of this poll, the centre-right would still have the numbers to govern, but there are just two seats in it. If Te Pāti Māori and the Greens make it to Government under a Labour-led coalition, can we expect some of their more “radical” ideas to be implemented? Unfinished business perhaps from the Ardern government?
MP Tākuta Ferris wants the Waitangi Tribunal to have its reports binding on the Government. It would render Ministers powerless and pointless if unelected activists are making binding decisions on the executive. These sorts of ideas are yet to flow to the public but rest assured, when election time comes, National, Act and NZ First will run a fierce scaremongering campaign designed to frighten voters – and Labour’s bedpals, the increasingly volatile Te Pāti Māori, will be the target.
Hipkins needs to give himself wiggle room; taking a principled position on Te Pāti Māori’s unacceptable attacks on Pākehā New Zealanders, and its arrogant swagger and dismissal of Parliamentary rules, would make Hipkins look like he has some spine.
Sadly, I believe he’s too scared to push them away and that will come into sharp focus shortly.
