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Download AudioLabour leader Chris Hipkins has made a major pitch to Māori voters with a speech to the Auckland City Mission calling out the coalition Government’s efforts to wind back progress on Māori and treaty issues and promote racist and revisionist history.
He says the last Labour Government made progress but failed to tell its story well enough on initiatives like the Māori health authority.
Mr Hipkins told Radio Waatea Labour won the party vote in all the Māori seats but lost six of the seven seats because many Māori felt they should split their vote seats to maximise the Māori voice in parliament.
“My message is you don’t need to do that. The Labour Party is absolutely committed to a strong Maori voice around the cabinet table. What we’ve seen since the election, and I get on well with some of our Maori Party members, but they seem to want to be a protest movement rather than a constructive, around the cabinet table partner in government and that’s fine if that’s what they want to do but if you want to have strong Maori representation around the cabinet table, that’s going to come from Labour’s Maori members and the more votes we get, the more of them there are going to be,” Mr Hipkins says.
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