Who does the Maori Party work for

This is just my opinion.

26/10/2014

Kia Ora.

This flowing off my fingers, just the very way I think it.

I am typing late at night, having just been woken from a dream. In the dream, I was having a poignant conversation.

New Zealand’s General Election happened just over a month ago. The New Government has been sworn in, as has the 51^st Parliament, which is now sitting.

We have something unprecedented in New Zealand history; that is that 30% of the New Zealand Legislature (people who make our laws) are Now, all MAORI.

We can be grateful that that Legislature has something Unique. What is unique is that we have seats that are there for MAORI. There are 7 MAORI Seats. All these 7 MAORI Seats are there, so that the people sitting in them work for MAORI.

Unfortunately, in that Legislature of 121 MPs, we have (since our inception 10 years ago) the lowest number of MAORI PARTY MPs. We only have 2.

THE RUB

If we are real with ourselves, the reason why we have the lowest number, all comes down how we told people our message. Who do we work for? Do THEY know what we do? Do THEY know who we are?

I now wish to make a simplistic statement about political perception and messaging in New Zealand.

See tables below

I will name all the Parties represented in the Parliament (as well as others that ran in the General Election, but who didn’t make it in).

PARTY	WHO THEY WORK FOR???
National	Business people, Corporations
Labour	Workers
Greens	Environmentalists
NZ First	Elderly people
United Future	Fisherman, “Middle New Zealand”
ACT	Taxpayers, Consumers

PARTY	WHO THEY WORK FOR???
Conservative Party	Conservative people
Internet Party	Internet Users
ALCP	Cannabis Users
MANA Movement	Poor People

We see in the 2 tables above, that messaging tells us who we think political Parties work for, and what we associate them and their names with.

Again, I come back to 2 questions;

 Who does the Maori Party work for? Do “they” know we work for them?

Above, on the first page, you’ll see MAORI in bold 5 times. But you’ll notice if you re-read those sentences, that I don’t explicitly say the MAORI PARTY works just for MAORI.

That’s because I fundamentally don’t believe that. It is an untrue statement to say that the MAORI PARTY works only for MAORI.

It is more accurate and more true to say that those in the MAORI SEATS work for MAORI.

The 26 MPs of MAORI descent can also work for MAORI.

Look carefully at the sentences just above. Maori is written 7 times, Maori Party is written twice.

We have 2 Maori Party MPs. We have 7 Maori seats.

Again, the 2 questions;

Who does the Maori Party work for? Do “they” know we work for them?

You may say, “Hang on, 6 of the 7 Maori Seats are with Labour, we only have 1 out of 7”.

Yes, that’s obviously true. What may not be obvious though, is that, parties aside, every one of the 7 Maori people in the 7 Maori seats all have whakapapa Maori, have Maori families and in each in their unique ways are committed to Kaupapa Maori. And whether we like it or not, Maori voters voted for these 7 Maori people to represent them in the 51^st Parliament.

What is critical is that the way all votes fell in the 2014 New Zealand General Election, meant that we have 30% of our Parliament made up of Maori.

Crucially for the Maori Party, for the first time, we have victory not just with voters in the Maori seats. Proportionately, a percentage of voters on the ‘General Roll’ have helped to gift us List MP.

This to me, shows that a percentage (though very small) of New Zealand voters overall, know who we work for and thus gave us that confidence.

The Maori Party does NOT work for Maori, The Maori Party works for WHANAU.WHANAU are at the heart of our policies. WHANAU are at the heart of who we are. WHANAU are our focus. We are WHANAU. We are a WHANAU. WHANAU are our yardstick, WHANAU are our gauge. WHANAU tell us where to go, WHANAU tell us what to do.

That is who I believe, the Maori Party works for. I believe the Maori Party works for Whanau.
I am sure you believe that too. We need to tell WHANAU that we work for them. WHANAU need to know that we work for them. If all WHANAU knew who we worked for, and voted accordingly, then the MAORI PARTY would not just be the Largest Party in the NZ Parliament, we’d be the only Party in NZ Parliament. That is because, everyone has a WHANAU. If from now on, we work with this in mind, we will always do better.

Kia Ora.