Maori seats become key battlefield

Labour Party president Mike Williams reckons he needs to mention just one word to a Maori audience to get all heads nodding in unison - jobs.

And as Labour's fightback for the Maori seats steps up, voters are going to hear plenty of talk about jobs.

He believes they are the No 1 issue in the Maori seats and a subject on which Labour has a good story to tell.

Over 40,000 more Maori are in work than there were six years ago. The Maori unemployment rate has dropped from 18.9 per cent in 1995 to 8.8 per cent, although it lags behind the non-Maori rate of 3.1 per cent.

Te Tai Tokerau MP Dover Samuels has been plugging away on that front in the job-starved North for some time.

Sixteen points behind Maori Party candidate Hone Harawira in the latest Marae-DigiPoll, with Independent Mere Mangu coming a strong third, Mr Samuels is facing a tough battle to retain his seat.

 

Mr Williams says because of its name Maori voters are immediately interested in having a look at the Maori Party.

Because it has only begun getting its policies out, Mr Samuels says it's been harder to isolate clear points of difference to debate head-to-head.

Unable then to grasp many single issues beyond the foreshore - the catalyst for the Maori Party's birth - Labour's strategy has been to claim the Maori Party lacks policy and a vote for it is a vote for National.

Underlying this is the "looking to the past or the future" theme; Labour is the party of the future, the Maori Party is locked in grievance mode.

There's no doubt the colour drained out of Labour's Maori MPs' world during the foreshore debate and the tearing apart of their caucus.

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia says "quite simply there will be continued arguments [about it] in history; whether it should have been done, left alone or done what we've done with it."

He's thought about it endlessly but "even though the agony was very high, we bloody hung in there", believing it encouraged Labour to eventually do the right thing.

Paving the way for the fightback is an improved party organisation in the seats and Mr Williams claims Labour has more people out door-knocking than the Maori Party.

He can't give firm numbers but wants to destroy "the myth" his opponents have more foot soldiers.

He continues to dismiss poll results as inaccurate, saying they reflect the views of "the middle-class Maori [who] are in love with the Maori Party".

They're the ones easily contactable on landlines by polling companies, unlike "ordinary working Maori" who often have prepay phones, he believes.

In the factories, where Maori are the most heavily-unionised workers, the unions are working to keep voters with Labour.

All that said, Mr Williams feels happier with the recent Marae-DigiPolls showing Labour recovering support in the seats and believes that will continue, maintaining Labour can take all seven seats.

Back at the coalface, Mr Samuels is frustrated National has backed off saying the Maori seats would be gone by lunchtime if it formed the next Government. It has weakened his line of attack against the Maori Party.

But he's sticking with his line: "The reality of the political landscape is this: there is going to be a Labour or National-led government. Now Maori have to decide which one they want."