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January 25, 2016
Flavell grumpy at Labour Ratana celebration
Waatea Team
Posted On January 25, 2016
Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Favell has slammed Labour for its performance at Ratana Pa yesterday.
The Maori Development Minister says the party bussed in a couple of busloads of supporters, many of them Pakeha, wearing stickers acknowledging the 80-year alliance between Labour and the haahi.
Leader Andrew Little promised to reinvigorate the relationship.
He also criticised about the likelihood the Trans Pacific partnership would make it harder for a future Labour-led government to enact policies that Maori and other new Zealanders need.
Mr Flavell says it was an example of the way the annual Ratana event has become a political lolly scramble rather than a celebration of the life of church founder Tahupotiki Wiremwu ratana.
"I go there on the back of that was the starting point of the Maori Party at Ratana Pa itself and I go there to acknowledge the great things that Ratana, apart from the association with the Labour Party, the things that Ratana was all about – the Treaty of Waitangi, mana motuhake, caring for our people," he says.
Mr Flavell says the Ratana paepae opens itself to political rhetoric by the speeches it gives to welcome the politicians.
Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
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