Shane Jones re-affirms his engagement on home soil to Dot Pumipi. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
Shane Jones re-affirms his engagement on home soil to Dot Pumipi. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
They came hoping to hear an announcement of a political marriage.
Instead they got an engagement of the romantic variety with former Northland-based MP Shane Jones re-affirming his intention to marry his partner Dot Pumipi.
Mr Jones popped the question on New Year's Eve while the pair were in the Solomon Islands, but the couple's annual Waitangi weekend party at their home near Kerikeri was a chance to share their engagement on home soil.
Shane Jones with some of his children, from left, Hoera Kleskovic, Haukura Jones and Te Aumihi Jones. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
Some guests has expected Mr Jones to reveal plans for the upcoming general election. Rumours are rife that the former Labour list MP, now the Pacific Economic Development Ambassador, will stand against Shane Reti in Whangarei for NZ First, setting up a battle of the two Shanes.
Speculation was further fuelled by Mr Jones' presence last Friday at a speech delivered in Paihia by NZ First leader Winston Peters, and the presence at Mr Jones' party of half the NZ First caucus.
However, Mr Jones swore he wouldn't talk politics until his ambassadorial contract ended in May, and Mr Peters said it was up to the party machinery to choose candidates, not him.
Warkworth-based NZ First MP Tracy Martin, Northland MP and NZ First leader Winston Peters and former Northland regional councillor Dover Samuels. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
Instead of politics Mr Jones promised, and delivered, "an evening of kaikai, inuinu and lots of korero" (eating, drinking and talking). True to his word, tables were soon groaning under the weight of red tuna, tuatua fritters and hangi.
"No one leaves the Jones' whare skinny," he commanded.
The guests included dozens of past and present MPs, two former Far North mayors (one of whom, Wayne Brown, provocatively wore a Donald Trump cap), lots of whanau, Dover Samuels crooning into the microphone, and diplomats representing 46 countries who were in the North for Waitangi Day festivities.
Former Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels gets to work in the kitchen with a packhorse crayfish from Matauri Bay. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
The Pacific-themed party doubled as a farewell to Mr Jones' diplomatic colleagues, who in turn said their goodbyes with a song led by Niue's High Commissioner, Olove Jacobsen, on ukulele.
"We're the world's first singing Diplomatic Corps," she claimed.
An auction of a Maori All Blacks shirt raised $4800 for Hospice Mid Northland. The winning bidder was seafood magnate Peter Talley.
Members of the Diplomatic Corps are led in song by the High Commissioner of Niue, Olove Jacobsen. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
