Election 2020: Candidate wants to abolish local councils

Poverty alleviation and housing are the key focus for independent candidate for Te Tai Tokerau Moemoea Mohowhenua. Photo / Tania Whyte

Poverty alleviation and removing legal hurdles to building houses on Māori land would be the key focus of independent candidate for Te Tai Tokerau Moemoea Mohowhenua.

In a full and frank interview with the Northern Advocate, he talks about Aotearoa re-gaining full sovereignty, all territorial authorities to be abolished, and for meth dealers to be executed.

"For me, I was brought up in a low socio-economic environment because all of our land had been stolen so my father had to work as a common labourer, like a slave, on land that had been stolen from us to make the Pākehā farmer rich.

"This is reality so for me poverty is the issue that is facing the Māori people which needs to be 100 per cent dealt with and the only way to deal with that, as far as I am concerned, is focus to re-gain full sovereignty over Aotearoa."

To hear the Hits host Charmaine Soljak's interview click here

Mohowhenua believes Covid-19 is a hoax and that there are excellent documentaries out there with irrefutable proof that all of this is a conspiracy.

"We need to get back into self-sustained communities and one of the key things that need to happen immediately is to stop all aeroplanes overseas and back over here to this country. This is nothing to do with Covid-19.

"Then we can be a socialist democratic confederacy country, totally self-sustaining."
Even though he ran for the Kaipara mayoralty last year, he did so for symbolic reasons because he knew he was never going to win.

"But I can honestly tell you that as far as I am concerned, once we regain full sovereignty which is inevitable, all councils will be abolished. So Māori and Pākehā will be sharing equal power and control. This is according to the Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

"We are meant to be in a partnership. You go over to the Kaipara District Council, there's only one Māori in there so where's the Māori voice in that? Where's the equality? There's none."

Mohowhenua has 81ha of land in Northland which, he said, he has tried to develop for years in a bid to build a papakāinga but legal restrictions have been a problem.

"The only thing I've ever grown in there is marijuana. There's some cows and beehives but my vision is to build a papakāinga there.

"We have all this land yet so many of our people are homeless," he said.

Moemoea Mohowhenua wants all local councils in Northland to be abolished so Māori and Pākehā can share power and control equally. Photo / Michael Cunningham

The first step towards dealing with meth was to stop "enslaving" anyone caught smoking the drug.

However, he said those dealing with meth should be executed.

Mohowhenua supports moving the Ports of Auckland to Northport because it would create real, sustainable mahi for his Māori people and for everyone else.

But he vehemently opposes the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into the environment.

The person who's had the biggest influence in his life has been his mother whom he described as "a beautiful Pākehā wāhine".