June 23, 2017
How to get strongest Maori voice in parliament will win the Maori seats.
Labour leader Andrew Little says the battle for the Maori seats will come down to the question of how to get the strongest Maori voice in parliament.
Labour’s Hauraki Waikato MP Nanaia Mahuta was at Pohara Marae near Cambridge last week for the launch of the campaign by her Maori Party rival, former Waikato Tainui executive chair and Kingitanga spokesperson Rahui Papa.
Mr Little says voters will realise it’s a fight about politics rather than personalities.
"There’s a political fight about how do we get the strongest possible Maori voice in parliament. We have a view a good strong representation of Maori in the Labour Party where everybody or at least every table around which a decision that is made there is a Maori voice of more than one usually there, as opposed to what we have at the moment which is Maori from the Maori Party being called in when it suits the government to do so. That's what the fight is going to be about in the election," he says.
Andrew Little says Nanaia Mahuta has shown she is able to tread the fine line between her responsibilities as an MP and her obligations to the Kingitanga and her tribe.
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