March 12, 2014
Greens hope for Maori vote boost
The Green Party will make an effort to harvest more Maori votes in this year’s election.
In 2011 the average Green share of the party vote in the seven Maori seats was 10.3 percent, compared to 11.1 percent in General seats.
Co-leader Metiria Turei says it will try to stand candidates in all the Maori seats as well as run as many Maori candidates as it can.
She says Maori voters are alert to when they are being condescended to, and they are sensitive to policies around jobs, schools, housing, and the treaty of Waitangi.
"Everything you do has to have a treaty analysis involved in it. Maori voters don’t necessarily vote just on treaty issues but they need to have confidence that a party understands what the treaty relationship is about so that when anything is happening, the treaty relationship forms the basis of it," Ms Turei says.
The Greens will try to stand candidates in all the Maori seats as well as run as many Maori candidates as they can.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH METIRIA TUREI CLICK ON THE LINK
http://www.waateanews.com/play_podcast?podlink=MTYxMzk=
Copyright © 2014, UMA Broadcasting Ltd