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December 22, 2015
National policies hurt Maori Party attraction
Waatea Team
Posted On December 22, 2015
New Zealand First MP Winston Peters says the Maori party will struggle to survive unless it can deliver economically for ordinary Maori families.
The veteran politician was looking back over an extraordinary political year in which he capped the return of his party to parliamentary politics by winning the Northland by-election.
He told Radio Waatea host Willie Jackson the Maori Party is now seen as tied in to National’s economic policies which are not helpful to Maori.
"The rank and file Maori out there in New Zealand and I would say 85 per cent are not having an easy run of it so that's the Maori Party's problem. They're locked into where they are with an economic policy where the gaps are growing larger not smaller. It means they are in a real struggle for survival," he says.
Winston Peters says what Maori need is more work and better work, particularly in the provinces.
Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell says his party has made a difference with things like proposed changes in the Resource Management Act to give Maori more say in planning, and in next year’s benefit rate increase, but its work doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
Copyright © 2015, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
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