August 17, 2017
Elections a teaching moment for Tamati
The Maori Party’s Te Tai Hauauru candidate says serving in local government convinced him of the need for dedicated Maori representation.
Howie Tamati is backing efforts by former New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd to get parliament to change the Local Electoral Act so councils no longer face being overturned by a binding referendum if they create Maori wards.
He says he only scraped on to the New Plymouth council, despite his sporting record and his high profile in the community, and as the only Maori had to educate other councillors.
"People just don’t know the Maori world. So I spend three years of the term as a New Plymouth district councillor trying to work with them to gain an understanding of Maori and how they think, what their needs are and what their expectations are, and the majority would start to gain and understanding. Then you have the elections again and you get three of four new ones with similar ignorance as we had the time before," he says.
Howie Tamati will face off against Labour incumbent Adrian Rurawhe and the Green’s Jack McDonald in this week’s Te Wero debate, coming to you on Irirangi Waatea and the iwi radio network.
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