Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson has taken a swing at National’s Simon Bridges and ACT’s David Seymour, saying they’re a “total waste of bloody time’’ when it comes to advocating for their own Māori people, writes political editor Jo Moir
Willie Jackson is offended, hacked off, but not surprised there are Māori MPs within Parliament who want the “racism and prejudice’’ of Māori wards to remain.
On Wednesday night legislation passed under urgency that will undo the current local government laws, which allow just five percent of voters to force a public referendum and ultimately overturn a council decision to have allocated Māori representation.
Since 2002 there have been 24 councils that have tried setting up Māori wards and only three were successful.
Jackson has been fighting for 20 years for the change and says finally “we have the opportunity to be Māori’’.
“Because the reality is, if you want to be pro-Māori you don’t get on council’.’
ACT leader David Seymour is of Ngāpuhi descent while National MP Simon Bridges’ whakapapa is Ngāti Maniapoto.
Both have spoken vehemently against abolishing the ability to overturn the wards.
And in the case of National, it announced its first 2023 election promise just hours after the legislation passed – to repeal it if in power.
“National isn’t opposed to Māori wards if councils and their communities want them, but it is for communities to make this decision - a right the Government has robbed them of,’’ National Party leader Judith Collins said.
At the same time Seymour compared the legislation to apartheid.
“Labour’s Māori wards legislation is better described as the Apartheid Bill. The basic assumption underpinning it is that our country has two categories of people with different legal rights,’’ Seymour said.
For Jackson, he says the comparison to apartheid is “absolutely offensive’’ given the legislation as it stood was “racist’’.
The ability to veto the council’s decision and hold a public referendum only applies to the Māori wards.
Both ACT and National hold the position that 14 percent of councillors are already Māori, which is equal to the proportion of the general population.
However, Jackson says, “95 percent of them would not be advocating a Māori view’’.
“You advocate a Māori view, you forget about getting up on the council.
“Seymour is a classic example of absolutely being Māori, like Simon Bridges is, but neither of them ever advocate Māori positions, so they’re a total waste of bloody time,’’ Jackson told Newsroom.
“They just happen to have Māori whakapapa - I’m not denying that - but they’ll never advocate Māori positions or kaupapa.’’
Jackson says any person of Māori descent who runs for council and talks about the Treaty of Waitangi or “espouses a real pro-Māori perspective’’ has no chance because “mainstream voters don’t want to hear it’’.
“If you get up and talk like Simon Bridges you get on council … because no one would know he has a drop of Māori blood in him,’’ he says.
Bridges described the move to protect the wards as insulting as a Māori man, because it suggested Māori needed special and separate treatment.
“This bill to me says I’m not good enough to win a vote of a non-Māori, well I am good enough,’’ he told Parliament during the legislation’s first reading.
At the start of February when the Government announced it would be introducing the Māori ward legislation to Parliament, the National Party was meeting in Wellington for its annual caucus retreat.
Collins announced on the same day that for the first time since 2002, National would run in the Māori seats at the 2023 election.
Jackson says that decision is “hypocritical and opportunistic’’.
He also pointed to a couple of rare examples where pro-Māori have bucked the trend on local government councils.
Former rugby league great, Howie Tamati, served five terms as a New Plymouth District Councillor before unsuccessfully taking a tilt in the Te Tai Hauāuru seat for the Māori Party in 2017.
“Howie is very special of course because if you’re a sports hero you’re able to traverse some of those prejudices,’’ Jackson says.
“It takes someone of that stature to get through - if Steven Adams had some Māori in him he’d be through, or one of the great All Blacks - Jonah Lomu would have been the Mayor.’’
Asked if that was a sweeping generalisation, Jackson responded it was a “very well thought out one’’.
Seymour hits back
Asked about his apartheid comparison, Seymour told Newsroom it was “wrong’’ to have a different set of rights based on ethnicity.
“If New Zealand goes down the track of having a different set of laws for people based on their race, we’re going to end up with division and resentment and that’s the same principle that took South Africa down a very dark path.’’
In response to Jackson's comments that he was a "total waste of bloody time'' on Māori kaupapa, Seymour says that's a perfect example of why you shouldn't "start classing humans by their race''.
"Māori don't have to have a particular ideology,'' he told Newsroom.
It was Seymour who advocated for and got charter schools across the line under a previous National-led government - Jackson benefitted from that policy after helping to set up one of the Auckland-based Māori schools.
The Labour Party subsequently ended the policy.
"Willie Jackson was happy to be a sponsor and receive money under ACT party policy. I'd love Willie to tell us if that was a Māori position or not,'' Seymour said.
