Why the Ma¯ori Party will

John Tamihere tells Steve Kilgallon his strategy to make the Ma¯ori Party the kingmakers again.

John Tamihere’s daughter is about to vote in her first election. He knows his other five children will be giving his Ma¯ori Party both their votes. But Rawinia, 19, has told him she’ll only give him her candidate vote – she’s going to party vote Labour. Correction, he laughs, party vote Jacinda.

Will there be repercussions? ‘‘In good conscience, these thoughts do cross one’s minds,’’ says Tamihere. ‘‘But the love for your babies transcends and overpowers all things, even when they make silly decisions.’’

It’s a story Tamihere tells with a smile, but it’s a neat illustration of what all minor parties are facing in this most unusual of elections – a lack of oxygen in the face of the Labour juggernaut.

In normal times, a walking headline like Tamihere, even leading a party that got just 1.15 per cent of party votes last time around, would be worthy of media airtime.

This time, he’s barely rated a mention.

Two reasons, he says. One because he had the ‘‘audacity’’ to take and settle a defamation action against radio host Mike Hosking.

Second, he says, is coronavirus. ‘‘When you get the source of all truth beaming into every lounge at 1pm every day, seven days a week for 30 weeks, it is pretty tough for anyone to get any oxygen. This is an unusual event – this is not about a contest of ideas, it is about supporting Mother Protector (Ardern).’’

And for all that, he blames… hang on, ‘‘that idiot, what’s his name?’’ He seems genuinely to have momentarily forgotten Simon Bridges.

Once he recalls the deposed National Party leader’s name, Tamihere blames him for agreeing to chair the Covid scrutiny committee, instead of demanding a seat around the cabinet table and a unity government.

Tamihere argues that New Zealand was on a war footing, ‘‘for the first time in New Zealand history, the invader has landed’’ and there was a case for a government of national unity. ‘‘Instead, he becomes a carping, moaning guy crossexamining bureaucrats who won’t tell him what he wants to hear because their bosses have already sifted the information. How crazy is that?’’

This, says Tamihere with the authority of someone who has run in so many elections he can’t remember, this is an election like no other in recent history: he compares it to the decision in 1942 to delay the election because of World War II.

He’s not particularly antiArdern, saying her handling of the three major crises of her leadership – White Island, the Christchurch mosque attacks and the pandemic – has been excellent.

And he’s also not dispirited.

He will happily talk about how the Ma¯ori Party are a realistic winner of the Waiariki and the Te Tai Haua¯uru seats, and have a ‘‘fighting chance’’ in Ta¯maki Makaurau, because his profile and organisation (the Tamihere for Tamaki Facebook page has 19,000 likes) help him against incumbent Peeni Henare.

But really, he’s seeing a very long game at play. For someone who has bounced around the political scene for more than two decades – he was a Labour MP from 1999 to 2005, and has had tilts at various local bodies, as well as running second for the Auckland mayoralty in 2019 – he says he is committed to the Ma¯ori Party for the long run.

He talks a lot about the gradual but unerring nature of change, and how the Ma¯ori Party can slowly drive those changes. He talks about how he’s looking to the 2023 and 2026 elections and how this is an ‘‘enduring political movement: we’re not going anywhere’’.

This all very different to the last time I interviewed him. It was 2013, and he declared a desire to become a Labour MP once again, and a belief that the Ma¯ori Party was an obsolete ‘‘trainwreck’’.

The pause is but for a second as he recollects the conversation. Yes, he says, the Labour comment was to ‘‘stir the pot’’ and see if either he or old sparring partner Willie Jackson might be invited back into the ranks. Jackson, of course, was, but it was made clear, he says, that he wasn’t forgiven.

A brief sidestep here, to remind you of the controversies which may have prompted that: the radio apologia for the Roastbusters (although Jackson was just as culpable); saying ‘‘sieg heil’’ to Phil Goff; calling female Labour MPs ‘‘frontbums’’. Tamihere accepts he will never escape frontbums – even though that was said in an interview nearly 20 years ago which he still maintains was meant to be off-therecord – thanks to ‘‘nasty little white men’’

‘‘How do you frontfoot your Ma¯oriness? Are you overt about it? I don’t want to be framed by your views of the world… I am a liberated native.’’ John Tamihere