Didn’t feel heard, prioritised who she needed to let know

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP Meka Whaitiri further outlined her reasons for leaving the Labour Party yesterday but seems to have left at least one major query unanswered.

On TVNZ’s Breakfast Whaitiri said she “didn’t feel heard” within Labour, but the decision was ultimately a personal one.

“It’s been my calling to return to an unapologetically Māori party,” she said. “The timing was right for me and my whānau and we made the decision.”

Then in a statement to the House, after both Te Pāti Māori co-leaders were ejected for welcoming her with a whakawātea without permission from other parties, Whaitiri said:

“. . . I’m very pleased to say I have joined a party that enables the voice of wahine Māori to be heard and not censured in this House.”

However, she did not fully answer the main question from her action — why she had not spoken beforehand to any of her close colleagues in Labour’s Māori caucus or Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who was on a plane to London at the time.

Instead she said she had prioritised who she needed to let know, and had informed the president of the party. Asked whether she trusted the prime minister, she replied somewhat equivocally: “No, I trust my whānau.”

That drew a slightly snarky response from Hipkins who said he had much more important things to focus on — which, with teachers striking and the Budget due to be delivered next week, would be true.

Whaitiri has rejected a suggestion from Labour Māori caucus co-chair Willie Jackson that she had probably wanted to be promoted, and that he himself had not done enough to look after her. It was not about him or her former Labour colleagues, she said, this was her journey and her responsibility to return back to a political movement unashamedly proud to be Māori.

Whether her reasons will convince political commentators, and more importantly voters, remains to be seen.

One thing is sure — she has created a problem for the Government by challenging it in a seat it has held since this giant electorate stretching right down the east coast of the North Island was formed in 1999.

The big question to be answered is how much of her 6000-vote majority at the last election was from staunch Labour voters and how much was her strong personal following. The answer won’t be known until the election in October, but it will be one of the more keenly watched results on election night.