Maori candidate to speak at Orewa

Maori Party candidate Hone Harawira will take the race debate back to the ground on which it began when he gives an address on race relations to the Orewa Rotary Club tomorrow.

The choice of location is no accident. In 2003, Don Brash used the Rotary club for his first major announcement as National Party leader.

In his speech he outlined his policy of removing funding targeted specifically at Maori and instead basing it on need.

The result was a leap in the polls for Dr Brash.

Mr Harawira, the candidate for the northern Maori seat of Te Tai Tokerau, said Dr Brash's speech unleashed a racist backlash.

"It is a club that is in my territory and it is beholden on me to start turning back the tide on that, he said. "Orewa is an appropriate place to do that."

He said the speech, called Orewa Revisited, would present a vision of where he thought the country should be heading.

The speech will be at midday.

When Dr Brash returned to race issues in a speech dubbed Orewa II in Whangarei on August 30, Mr Harawira confronted him afterwards, shaking his hand and noting he might have been a gentleman in the first TVNZ leaders' debate, but this speech showed he was a racist.

In the speech, Dr Brash said he would abolish the Maori seats and he did not view the Treaty of Waitangi as a partnership.

He promised to remove references to the principles of the treaty from 39 laws, resolve treaty grievances by 2010 and wind up the Waitangi Tribunal and Office of Treaty Settlements.

He also said he would review Government agencies that dealt exclusively with Maori issues, including Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development).

As a result the Maori Party has ruled out any chances of working with National in government.