Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi says the election campaigns of the other parties seem to be about the fears of elderly pākeha voters.
He says that sort of politics isn’t good for te iwi Māori, and does nothing for issues like poverty which lie at the heart of many social issues.
“The greatest violence you can inflict on anybody is poverty so putting more police out there on the line may make some people feel safer but id doesn’t make us feel safer because we’re more racially profiled than everyone else in the country. Ther are reports out there showing systemic racism in the police. I have issues with that,” Mr Waititi says.
Te Pāti Māori’s justice policy includes the establishment of a Māori justice authority which would oversee a parallel Māori justice system based on tikanga and self-governance.
The authority would be funded by reallocating 20 percent of the budget now spent on Corrections, Police, and Courts.
The party also wants to abolish prisons in Aotearoa by 2040.
Rawiri Waititi says New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is struggling this election because his formula of using Māori as a political football has been co-opted by ACT’s David Seymour, who is after the same voters.
