NZ First MPs call for return to contesting Maori seats

By RUTH BERRY

Two New Zealand First MPs are urging the party to review its opposition to contesting the Maori seats, saying there are widespread calls from the electorate for an about-turn.

List MPs Pita Paraone and Edwin Perry, first-term MPs, told the Herald the issue had not been discussed in caucus, but they believed a review of the policy should be held.

Party sources said the call would irritate leader Winston Peters, who likes to keep a tight rein on his MPs and differences of opinion in-house.

NZ First is working harder to reach out to Maori voters for its party vote, and Mr Paraone and Mr Perry are two of about four MPs charged with courting them.

But Mr Peters wants the pursuit to be managed carefully, aware of the disaster that beset NZ First after it won all Maori seats in 1996.

The party lost them in 1999 and Mr Peters announced just before the last election that the party would not stand in the seats because they had become symbolic of separate development and sidelined Maori.

Before Mr Peters' announcement, Mr Paraone, then the party's board representative for the Maori seats, said the party had been caught short by the early election and had no candidates ready.

Mr Paraone said this week that Labour's handling of the foreshore and seabed issue, its decision to plough ahead with abolishing appeals to the Privy Council and its support of prostitution law reform were issues alienating Maori voters.

"Since the last election there has been a major shift in what the Maori electorates have been telling us." The seats were "there for the taking".

Mr Paraone said he was aware of Mr Peters' stance, but, with "one or two others", hoped the caucus might revisit the issue.

Mr Peters said: "There's no doubt that a number of Maori want us to stand in the Maori seats. But our response is we have been there, we have done that." The pathway for development was through the general franchise.

NZ First would not advocate abolishing the seats until Maori favoured it, but had proved through the number of Maori MPs in its party - six out of 13 - that the system was no longer necessary.