November 08, 2022
Tino rangatira battle ahead for Potaka
Māori Party president John Tamihere says the National Party’s candidate for the Hamilton West by-election may find his biggest battle will be with his own party.
He expects Tama Potaka to easily win the seat vacated by former Labour MP Gaurav Sharma.
But his background in iwi development doesn’t square with National’s current position of opposing everything that allows Māori to self-manage.
“I don’t know how Tama can reconcile his whakapapa with the way in which his leadership wants to suppress us from gaining the right to self-management, self-determination in our own country,” Mr Tamihere says.