Listen Now: 
National Party leader Judith Collins is defending a question line the Māori Party is calling racist.
Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi was yesterday ordered from the chamber after objecting to Ms Collins’ question about a report on implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
He says two weeks of questions on topics like He Puapua, the Māori Health Authority and Māori Wards constitute an attack on Māori.
Ms Collins says she's asking questions people want answers to.
"And if the Prime Minister continues to simply talk about everything except answering the question or flinging accusations back at me, I will have to continue to ask the questions, and that is the point. Rawiri has to be in charge of his own behaviour. I'm not his mother and have no intention of becoming it," she says.
But Greens co-leader Marama Davidson says the National Party’s current question strategy is abhorrent.
Ms Davison says she was proud fellow Green MP Teanau Tuiono joined Māori Party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa Packer in walking out yesterday.
She says National always attacks Māori initiatives when it wants to hide its own failure.
"It's a strategy that harms our people, that raises racist narratives, that uses te tiriti justice as a racists dog whistle and it emboldens people across the country to continue to cause and create racist attitudes towards Māori and tangata whenua and I will not have it," Ms Davidson says.
!["p_facebook"]("/site/uma/images/story_img/facebook.jpg")
& !["p_twitter"]("/site/uma/images/story_img/twitter.jpg")
Copyright © 2021, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
RELATED NEWS
