Te Pāti Māori has called Meka Whaitiri home. Photo / Te Pāti Māori
Te Pāti Māori has called Meka Whaitiri home. Photo / Te Pāti Māori
ANALYSIS
A Government minister, a Labour Party backbencher and a Green MP are being wooed by Te Pāti Māori following the coup of enticing Cabinet Minister Meka Whaitiri to cross the political floor.
The Herald has been told that two Labour MPs - one a minister - a backbencher and a Green MP have had discussions with Te Pāti Māori about switching allegiances.
That kōrerō got real this week when the Government and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, while on transit to the UK - were caught floundering when Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP and Customs Minister Meka Whaitiri resigned from the Labour Government and jumped right into bed with Te Pāti Māori.
The political punch from Te Pāti Māori was as good as any KO thrown by former Kiwi heavyweight champion David Tua.
Well-placed political sources said Whaitiri is not the only MP that Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere has been in discussions with. The source said Tamihere has had talks with Labour, Greens and even National MPs.
Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere announcing Meka Whaitiri's move to the Māori Party. Photo / Te Pāti Māori
Tamihere spent the past five days in Hastings organising the massive Whaitiri political coup. He said many Māori will see the move by Whaitiri as not one of betrayal to Labour but one of liberation for Māori and this was a turning point for Te Pāti Māori.
“She is crossing the bridge to her own emancipation,” Tamihere said at the well-staged press conference held at Whaitiri’s home, Waipatu Marae in Hastings.
Meka Whaitiri at Waipatu Marae Hastings. Photo / Te Pāti Māori
Tamihere, a former Labour Cabinet Minister, said it would be inappropriate to discuss who he, or Te Pāti Māori, had been in discussions with.
The Whānau Ora CEO said he had identified a number of potential allies from all sides of the political spectrum. He praised his two MPs, Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who have been “constant pebbles in the Government’s shoes”.
He said Whaitiri would add an already battle-hardened political awareness to Te Pāti Māori.
Meka Whaitiri and her Te Pāti Māori colleagues, Rawiri Waititi, Heather Te Au Skipworth, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, Natasha Kemp, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Takuta (Doc) Ferris. Photo / Te Pāti Māori
“The performance of our two MPs [Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer] has been magnificent,” Tamihere told the Herald this week.
“Our communities have proven to themselves that they can manage and respond to all challenges. We therefore have the capacity to manage ourselves out of welfarism and become positive progressive whānau.
Whaitiri’s dance across the parliamentary floor was a master stroke in political chess.
Sources said Labour Māori strategist Willie Jackson was “upset” when first notified of Whaitiri’s defection late Monday. Jackson will now have to convince his Labour colleagues that the rest of the Maori caucus remains intact and united.
Whaitiri said the decision to leave Labour was one she agonised over long and hard.
“The decision to cross the floor is not an easy one, but the right one,” she said.
Whaitiri, while signalling she will contest Ikaroa-Rāwhiti for Te Pāti Māori at the upcoming elections, will be an independent MP and sit with her new Māori Party colleagues in the debating chamber.
