Labour Party Māori MPs Need to Check Themselves

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Fri Apr 22 2016 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Labour Party Māori MPs Need to Check Themselves

Friday, 22 April 2016, 9:25 am
Press Release: The Maori Party

Labour Party Māori MPs Need to Check Themselves

Recent attempts by Labour Party Māori MPs to use social media and online campaigns to wage a war against any Māori Party policy is being challenged by Māori Party President Naida Glavish.

“Last week Nanaia Mahuta cried in the house about my public statement that she needed to look in her own backyard and her party’s history when it comes to ensuring the survival of our language. And this week her colleague Meka Whaitiri continues her campaign of mistruths about our party’s attempts to redress significant anomalies that have existed within Te Ture Whenua legislation for decades,” says Ms Glavish.

“They continue to treat us as ignorant and uninformed but the truth is many of our people remember everything that Labour has done to wield their power over us. The list is long and it aint pretty. Let us not forget that their previous leader Helen Clark preferred to spend time with a sheep named Shrek rather than face the tens of thousands of our people who marched to parliament to challenge their modern day land confiscation, the Foreshore and Seabed Act. That is their legacy which we reject and why we see the importance of the Māori Party.”

“The other issue I have is that the Māori MPs in the Labour Party have become the brown taiaha used by Labour to patu the Māori Party. Rather than finds ways to collaborate for the collective benefit of our people they allow themselves to be used to spread innuendo, mistruths, the old divide and rule colonial tool. That is why I say they better check themselves, they jumped on the bandwagon the easy road to parliament. Yet the hard work is being done day in day out by our two Māori Party MPs to be the independent Māori voice in parliament.”

“So I send this message to them – He taō rākau e taea te karo engari he taō kōrero e kore e taea te karo. Spears made of wood can be avoided but the spears made of talk or words cannot.”

ENDS

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