Hui over - it's time for action

The new Maori Party has been born in clouds of enthusiasm. But, as JON STOKES reports, now it faces the hard yards to bring together very different people with very different aims and ideas



Tariana Turia burst into tears at the sight of her image, held aloft by ardent kuia outside Parliament at the end of the 20,000 strong hikoi in Wellington earlier this month.

Her emotion was, perhaps, driven by the extraordinary events of the day where conservative, radical, urban and iwi Maori marched in unity or perhaps it was the realisation of the immensity of the mahi (work) many in the crowd expected from her.

What lay ahead for the then Associate Minister of Maori Affairs was her defiance of Helen Clark, by crossing the floor in opposition to the Government's foreshore and seabed legislation and her subsequent resignation from Labour.

Last weekend at a hui of Maori leaders and supporters at West Auckland's Waititi marae she was confirmed as co-leader, with academic Pita Sharples, of a new political movement - unimaginatively named the Maori Party.

Long-time Maori sovereignty campaigner and Anglican church leader Whatarangi Winiata was voted party president.

The following day at a hui in Tainui, more than 1000 people endorsed the party's formation and heaped praise, kisses, hugs on the diminutive Turia. Her status as a political superstar seemed complete.

Her tears were replaced by a beaming smile, spurred by a new poll showing the majority of Maori would vote for a new party.

Turia said around 700 signed for the party at Monday's hui, with a further 300 volunteering to work in the July 10 byelection for Te Tai Hauauru.

The movement is riding a wave of enthusiasm and there is talk it can take all seven Maori seats. But the leaders of Tainui, one of Maoridom's most influential and wealthy iwi, remained coy. Co-chairman Tuku Morgan said he would need to talk to the people before pledging support.

His stance has been echoed throughout the country with many individuals supporting the movement but tribal structures declining to endorse it publicly.

Ngai Tahu, the country's third largest and commercial pin-up iwi, have said they will not provide funding or support. Chief executive Tahu Potiki said he doubted the party's chances.

Most leaders spoken to by the Weekend Herald remained cautious. Hauraki Maori Trust board chairman, Toko Renata, said after Monday's meeting that he would wait and see.

THE former head of Mana Motuhake, Willie Jackson, has a good handle on the hurdles a Maori party faces.The late Matiu Rata had three unsuccessful attempts at getting back into Parliament for Mana Motuhake after walking from the Labour Party in 1979. Only after joining up with the Alliance was Mana Motuhake able to get three members into Parliament - Sandra Lee, Alamein Kopu and Jackson.

Jackson blames a misplaced belief that the party was only about getting tino rangatiratanga (Maori sovereignty). The sovereignty debate has already been raised as an issue clouding the new party's prospects but Jackson believes it has a strong platform.

"Unlike Mana Motuhake the Maori Party has a key issue [the foreshore and seabed]. It has an incumbent MP [Turia]."

The network of Maori media, with 24 radio stations and the Maori television service, which now exists will ensure the party's message reaches potential voters.

Jackson, himself the new head of South Auckland's radio Waatea, believes the party has secured a coup in enlisting the experienced Matt McCarten, named as Turia's campaign manager. It is under the guidance of McCarten that the nuts and bolts of setting up the party, and in part, the moulding of its diverse interests into a viable political force, has been placed.

McCarten is confident. He believes his background as a union organiser and working with the competing interests in the Alliance will stand him in good stead."If anyone knows about the enormity of the job [of setting up a party] and has a brown face it is me."

He says the focus of the party in the short term is to win the Te Tai Hauauru byelection impressively while working on party structures and policy. By then the working party, hand-picked by the party's leadership, will have worked towards the development of policy and a constitution.

"A hui will then need to be convened to formally set up the constitution. In the meantime some group, a steering committee, needs to be set up to have some mandate to act - to open a bank account, appoint a secretary, to register the party officially.

"You need a treasurer to be in charge of the bank account and sign cheques, to ensure money is accounted for. You will need to establish an office, phones, an 0800 number, employ staff. Without those you don't have an organisation," says McCarten.

He wants a tightening of communication channels within the organisation, "otherwise you have all sorts of individuals saying things in the press, such as Titiwhai and Donna Hall and such individuals".

And he favours an inclusive party with Pakeha who want to make a contribution. He says people will want to know if the party is serious and if it is broad. "I think the way it conduct itself internally will be critical."

There are voices of dissent - voices such as the talk-back callers to Jackson's radio Waatea the night of Monday's hui.

A veteran Maori radical tells equally veteran and equally radical host Sid Jackson she is cynical about the re-emergence of a number of political ghosts from Maori parties past.

Callers fear the old faces will dilute the impetus of the hikoi, the catalyst for the party's formation.

Hikoi organiser and a prospective candidate in Northland's Te Tai Tokerau electorate, Hone Harawira, believes some Maori expectations of what the party can achieve are unrealistic.

"We have had such a rat-shit deal in the past a lot of people will be hoping all the solutions can be provided by the new organisation. It's going to be tough."

Harawira says there has been a strong and persistent call among some Maori for their "own separate parliament ... separate constitution, the whole thing."

"If our people think the Maori party is going to deliver tino rangatiratanga [Maori sovereignty] by 2005, then unfortunately that is expecting far too much."

Party president Winiata is a staunch advocate of a distinct Maori House of Parliament, constitutionally equal to the present House. He wants both to be subservient to a third chamber, a Treaty House, where a Maori minority would have as much power as representatives of the majority.

His stance was backed by Turia when she said in an interview with National radio she favoured a dual Parliament. Sharples, however, talks of a more inclusive structure with a "tangatawhenua concept as the base kaupapa philosophy and culture".

"It has to start as a Maori party because that's the mandate that's uniting people. But if you stay Maori too long you are going to lose your party vote to other people.

After Sunday's hui Turia's smiling eyes hardened at the mention of division and she distanced herself from talk of separation.

"None of us have said that we are establishing separate structures. We did not say that, we have been misunderstood. We will be involved in the existing parliamentary structure."

At Monday's hui Sharples talked of getting into Parliament and changing the structure and constitution.

But he says the party will be consensus based. "We won't have a super committee that picks everybody to stand. Whoever the rohe [regions] chuck up, that's it, so they truly represent their rohe.

"If the rohe elect a whole lot of ding-dongs then we are down the tubes. But if they elect people who have credibility in the public arena, then we will be successful. A lot of it does hinge on who they elect."

Sharples is seen as the key to the party broadening its appeal to include the wider Maori community, who, by and large, are politically conservative.

His base in West Auckland exposes him to the realities for the 83 per cent of Maori who are urban. "We are not one homogeneous group. We are different sides of the fence in court actions over fish, for example. And we have to accept that -and keep that to the fish. Politically we have to stay united."

He says that is happening. "You have people like Donna Hall acting in conjunction with Sir Graham Latimer who independently went out and got the 500 signatures required to register as a political party."

The party must face the reality that Maori voters have been historically reluctant ballot attenders. At the last election just 58 per cent of the 196,000 on the Maori roll turned out to vote, with 77 per cent of the 158,000 on the general roll. Although they constitute almost 15 per cent of the country's population, a low age median of just 22 means it will be a number of years before that is reflected in those eligible to vote.

That isn't all bad news electorally for the budding politicos. The numbers required to win Maori seats are remarkably small. Parekura Horomia had the clearest majority and that was only 10,359 votes.

A Maori party doesn't have to win too many hearts and minds. Asked if he is confident, Sharples is typically honest: "I'm scared shitless. I don't want this to fail."