Sharples: Door still open for Hone

Pita Sharples has endorsed the strategy. Photo / Richard Robinson

Maori Party leader Pita Sharples has left the door open for suspended MP Hone Harawira to make an unlikely return to the party's parliamentary caucus.

Dr Sharples said Mr Harawira would be welcomed back if he stopped speaking out against the Maori Party and voted in line with its policies.

"We're all really quite close as people, so maybe he can see that there is way forward for him to come, change his ways and be part of the team," Dr Sharples said.

"It would need to be an admission by him that he is prepared to come within the code of behaviour and the activities and requirements of being in caucus. It's probably not likely, but you don't know."

He said Mr Harawira's view that the party should leave the coalition, was "so wrong".

"A lot of things he speaks about is what we challenge in Cabinet about... we've all fought for those things."

Maori Party MP Rahui Katene said the party was about getting gains for Maori.

"A lot of what he is saying we actually agree with. It's the manner of what he's saying that's the problem."

The Maori Party suspended Mr Harawira from its parliamentary wing yesterday after an ongoing dispute triggered by a newspaper column he wrote criticising the party.

Party whip Te Ururoa Flavell filed a formal complaint with the party's National Council, which will be considered tomorrow.

It accused Mr Harawira of deliberately bringing the party into disrepute by constantly undermining the party, its MPs and the leadership through statements to the media.

Mr Harawira was defiant on the suspension decision this morning, claiming it was a "public relations disaster".

Though he admitted he had said and done things he shouldn't have, he did not regret anything he said in his newspaper column.

"Those are exactly the things I'm hearing from Maori Party member in Te Tai Tokerau... I've raised every one of those issues in caucus ... none of that is new."

He maintained he would remain with the Maori Party and stand in his Te Tai Tokerau seat at the general election on November 26.

The complaint against him should be dropped and the suspension lifted, he said

"Then we could get on with the business of winning all seven Maori seats," he said.

- NZ Herald staff