Priorities on table in Te Tai Tokerau

Hone Harawira dishes up. Photo / Malcolm Pullman

Ngapuhi Iwi social services staff in Kaikohe won him at a fundraising auction to cook lunch for them on Thursday - but campaigning MP Hone Harawira arrives way too late for any lunch-time culinary exploits in the runanga's kitchen.

The Mana Party leader is threatened with dishwashing duties but, instead, he finds time to serve kai to more than 30 people who turn up for a staff lunch in the town that calls itself the heart of Ngapuhi country in the sprawling Te Tai Tokerau electorate.

"He's late so we've got started. We paid good money for him too, a couple of hundred dollars at the auction," says kitchen helper Liz Marsden as she gets busy preparing chicken drumsticks, prawns on noodles, mussels, rice, green salads and bread.

Harawira explains his late arrival by claiming to have cleared 60 emails and given two phone interviews on his way back from the Hokianga to Kaikohe.

"I wasn't driving. I stopped and parked under a tree," he says. "And Liz has agreed to do the dishes on my behalf."

As people queue for their meal served by the MP ("I do this every day you know"), Harawira is confident his message of taking from the rich to help the poor is on song with most in the electorate and beyond. "Keep the message simple so everyone understands it. Then you're halfway there ... Even a lot of the rich themselves think they should pay more."

His proposed financial transaction tax aimed especially at people speculating on financial markets would allow GST - "a tax on the poor" - to be removed, he believes.

Tertiary education should be free because investment in high-quality education is the best investment a country can make, while basic health services should be free for all New Zealanders, he tells people enjoying their lunch.

He says years of the free market where everything, including land and assets, is available to the highest bidder have turned humans into commodities. "We all deserve to be treated with respect."

Across on the Far North's east coast, Te Tai Tokerau's Labour candidate and current list MP Kelvin Davis lists education as a priority.

"You can't get a decent job if you're not well educated and people want jobs. If they're not there and with living costs rising, whanau are packing up and going to Australia."

Davis believes spending on social housing is one area where jobs can be created while a major need is fulfilled. He knows of one Kaitaia organisation with 42 property mortgagee sales on its books.

In the electorate's West Auckland area, people are paying $350 a week to live in trailer parks in third world conditions, Davis says.

"If we can build more social housing, we'd have more jobs and fill a serious need."

Harawira holds the Te Tai Tokerau seat for the Mana Party with a 1117-vote majority after winning a by-election in June. But a Te Karere-DigiPoll poll this week puts Harawira on 42 per cent support, only seven points ahead of Davis.

Maori Party Te Tai Tokerau candidate Waihoroi Shortland, trailing on 20 per cent, has a full book of engagements as he travels south to Whangarei, calling for Northland's rail link with Auckland to be retained. Its loss would impact adversely on local industries like forestry, he says.

Shortland believes marae can be made into hubs of their local communities, but says Maori communities he's seen in the Far North seem to suffer from always being at the end of every health and education line.