Māori Party Pointless Headline Hunting
new-zealand-first-party
Tue Aug 02 2016 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Māori Party Pointless Headline Hunting
Tuesday, 2 August 2016, 1:07 pm
Press Release: New Zealand First Party
Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
2 AUGUST 2016
Māori Party Pointless Headline Hunting
Most Māori support Helen Clark’s UN bid, says New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland Rt Hon Winston Peters.
“The Māori Party’s attack on her campaign is just ‘pointless headline hunting’.
“The foreshore and seabed legislation in 2004 was not Labour Party policy but came from New Zealand First.
“New Zealand First had consulted with coastal iwi across the country and was supported by those iwi as expressed by Ngati Porou’s Api Mahuika.
“Between 2005 and 2008 as Foreign Minister I advised the then government against signing up to the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Rights, because it concerned the sovereignty of this country and we opposed New Zealand’s laws being written by an international body thousands of miles away.
“Between 2005 and 2008 the Māori Party, knowing of the support for the foreshore and seabed legislation from coastal iwi, went silent on the issue. In 2008 they didn’t even campaign on it and only raised it after the 2008 election when they persuaded the National government to agree to race based policies.
“It will be recalled that the Minister of Māori Affairs, Pita Sharples, in the dead of night, travelled to the UN to sign up to the declaration, an event that the National Party gave no warning of.
“The Māori Party’s challenge to Helen Clark now owes more to its struggle to be relevant as their political support dramatically declines. This attack on Helen Clark’s campaign will be opposed by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders whatever their ethnic or political backgrounds might be.
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“For Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox to say Māori MPs will oppose the UN campaign owes more to her non consultative self-serving opinions than to any statement of fact of what Māori think.
“From my discussions around the country Māori seriously support Helen Clark’s campaign to be Secretary General of the United Nations especially in the North, as do the great majority of New Zealanders who have put aside petty politics in the nation’s interest,” says Mr Peters.
ENDS
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