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National’s Maori development spokesperson says Maori commentators should check first before attacking her reported comments.
Jo Hayes denies telling a Radio New Zealand reporter that some Maori could end up better off if their welfare payments were reduced.
She says her comments about the increasing number of Maori receiving a benefit and about the need for resilience and entrepreneurialism, drawing from her own life experience, had been misinterpreted.
It drew fire from New Zealand Maori Council executive director Matthew Tukaki and Maori Party president Che Wilson.
“I mean I don’t know Matthew, he’s always hanging round the Maori Affairs select committee. You’ve got Che Wilson, I know Che very well and he should know that I would never say that. I’ve worked too much of my life for Maori and helping Maori whanau to go out and say that,” Ms Hayes says.
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