Election review needs to tackle diversity loss

A member of National’s Kahurangi Māori group hopes a review of the party’s election performance will highlight its loss of Māori and Pasifika representation.

Deputy leader Shane Reti survived only because he had been moved up the list weeks before by new leader Judith Collins.

The review looking at candidate selection, the party’s narrative, and the caucus' performance is led by professional director Mark Darrow and includes independent member June McCabe, a Maori businesswoman and governance expert.

Ward Kamo, whose wife Agnes Loheni was too low on the list to get back in, says he hopes the review can consider why other Māori and Pasifika candidates weren’t higher on the list or in safe seats.

"What I'm hearing and hope to see is a genuine commitment to diversity and never again allowing a situation where National gets its bottom spanked, because this won't be the only time, these things appear to be cyclical, that our brown people have to be the first to pay the price," Mr Kamo says.

Ward Kamo says Judith Collins has shown a commitment to diversity by taking n the Pacific Island portfolio.

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