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Ngapuhi elders are meeting in Waitangi today to discuss whether they should welcome Prime Minister John Key onto Te Tii Marae before the official Waitangi Day commemorations.
Marae kaumatua Kingi Taurua has called for the PM to be barred because of his support for the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Mr Taurua says is a threat to sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi.
Former MP Hone Harawira says there’s an argument for welcoming people you disagree with and then delivering a message of opposition, and New Zealand Maori Council chair Sir Graham Latimer did in 1981 while welcoming the touring Springbok rugby team.
"But John Key in this situation is deliberately using the TPPA to generate controversy, to generate a fight so that he can get a lot more redneck support for what he is doing, so for that reason I am very much in favour of what Kingi Taurua is saying, don't be too welcoming of the Prime Minister," he says.
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