Shane Jones: No place for guilt-tripping in NZ First policy

NZ First's Shane Jones with wife Dot Jones at the Duke of Marlborough in Russell. Photo / Mike Cunningham

New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones says colonial guilt is not a good starting place for Māori policy.

Jones said with Te Pāti Māori winning just 87,000 of the 280,000 votes from New Zealanders on the Māori roll, that did not give them the mandate to speak for or on behalf of Māori.

He said Te Pāti Māori campaigned on a platform of Māori liberation and indigenous solutions drawn from the past to unlock the wellbeing of the nation. That was not what motivated past leaders like Matiu Rata and Koro Wetere, whose reforms delivered the benefits for Māori that Te Pāti Māori is now capitalising on.

“Empowering, developing and giving people the skills is challenging enough without having to be the purveyors or bear the burden as Māori politicians and making sure the whole country feels guilty,” Jones told Waatea.News.Com.

“I think that’s where the Green Party, that’s where the Labour Party, has lost substantially large swathes of support from garden-variety Kiwis. It is anathema to how New Zealand First believes both the country and Māori should develop.”

Jones said political parties need to gain the support of their fellow New Zealanders before making constitutional changes.

Labour MP Kelvin Davis will stay on in politics despite losing his Te Tai Tokerau Seat to Te Pāti Māori candidate Mariameno Kapa-Kīngi after special votes were counted.

Meanwhile, Labour MP Kelvin Davis hopes a National-Act-NZ First coalition won’t snub next year’s Waitangi celebrations.

Davis, who stepped down as deputy leader of Labour after losing his Te Tai Tokerau electorate seat to allow for more younger blood to come through, says Labour has restored dignity to the February 6 celebrations at the birthplace of the nation.

National administrations under previous prime ministers John Key and Bill English skipped the Bay of Islands celebrations in 2016 and 2017.

“We put a lot of effort over the past six years to make sure it was a dignified occasion, that we spent a lot of time there engaging with people on the ground, Māori on the ground up in Tai Tōkerau [Northland] so it will be interesting to see how that goes because the last thing I want is for the dignity of the occasion and the dignity of Ngapuhi to be diminished by the new Government,” Davis says.

He is also unsure if his ministry, Te Arawhiti, which has oversight of the Treaty Settlements Office, will be continued under the new coalition.

Adam Gifford - Waatea.News.Com