Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Te Pāti Māori is intentionally steering clear of indicating which major party it might support post-election if it holds the balance of power.
It comes as the Green Party puts a line in the sand over climate action, saying it would only accept the “strongest possible climate action” from parties that want its support in forming a government after the upcoming election - a strong message to Labour after it axed several climate-focused policies.
Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, appearing on TVNZ’s Q+A today, signalled previous agreements between her party and others may not be replicated following this year’s election.
“We haven’t made a choice of who we would go with and deliberately because we may not go into relationships like have been done in the past.
“I think it’s really important that we don’t try and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go with this one or that one’, that we actually hold pono [true] to our values and our kaupapa and that we leverage our power or influence as we think is best and it may be in a relationship, it doesn’t mean that we have to ministers.
“It’s a long time between now and October 14 and what we have seen is a real back-pedalling between the two large parties on whether they are this or are that, so it’s really too soon for us to identify what it is that some of them stand for.”
Te Pāti Māori leadership Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi. Photo / Whakaata Māori
In the latest 1News Kantar Public Poll on Monday, Labour could form a government with the support of the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi at the time told 1News he would be “looking forward” to any discussions with Labour and the Greens to come about working together.
Ngarewa-Packer indicated her reluctance to work with parties that didn’t promote Māori.
“There is no way that we would be able to be in a relationship with anyone that’s opposed to any of the policies that pretty much want to undo any policy that advances Māori.
“I think there would need to be a lot of discussion on what we have in common ... it would be about values and commitment to a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa and we’ve always said that.”
Asked if voters deserved to know which way the party was leaning, Ngarewa-Packer was confident the party’s messaging was being heard.
“The supporters and those that we talk to, we wananga [engage] with and the 300,000 that follow us are really aware of how we think and what we do because again that’s the difference, they don’t just see us in Parliament in the House and decide and that the only time they see us, we engage with them.”
In a statement today, Greens co-leader James Shaw said the party would only accept the “strongest possible climate action” from parties that want its support in forming a government after this year’s election.
“To any political party that wants the Green Party’s support to form a government after the election, let us put it as simply as we can: the Green Party will not accept anything less than the strongest possible climate action,” Shaw said.
“The stakes are too high, the consequences of failure too great.”
On Monday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins resumed his policy bonfire with a focus on transport policies, including some that were intended to reduce New Zealand’s emissions, such as the $568 million clean car upgrade scheme, the social leasing car scheme and some public transport goals.
