Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi says National and ACT are using talk of co-governance to scare voters.
After months of hammering by the Opposition including a well-funded billboard campaign by National promising to scrap Three Waters, the Government has released a revised infrastructure plan which retains Māori input at a strategic level but denies that involves co-governance.
Mr Waititi says the new plan doesn’t meet his definition of co-governance as having an equal say.
“That was never part of the last legislation either so it’s a bogey man the likes of National and ACT have trumped up to scare themselves – it’s like them lying in bed and saying ‘there’s a monster under my bed,’ and actually it’s nothing. it’s probably and old orange peel or apple core they left there from the day before,” he says.
Mr Waititi says Te Pāti Māori voted against the original Three Waters legislation on the basis of rights, while National and ACT voted on the basis of race – and he’s picking a lot of race-baiting in the run up to the election.
