Addressing social injustice
She will vote for her party, but this Auckland candidate will not vote for herself.
That’s because Cinnamon Whitlock was standing in the general electorate of Kelston but was herself a voter on the Ma¯ ori role.
It was the first foray into politics for the Ma¯ ori Party candidate, of Nga¯ Puhi, Nga¯ti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Te Rarawa, Tainui, descent.
But nobody asked Whitlock to stand. Instead, the 48-year-old approached the party because she wanted to address social injustice.
At number 18 on the list, she knew she was unlikely to make Parliament, but it was good experience for a future in politics, she said. The door knocking was particularly enjoyable, the Glendene resident said.
‘‘I don’t know how you can actually reflect and represent them if you haven’t walked the streets that our people walk.’’
Some of the issues she was campaigning on was poverty and inequality, which she had witnessed while doorknocking, was ‘‘massive in Kelston’’.
‘‘I’m from Whangaroa and some of the homes in [Kelston] are as dilapidated as you’d see in the Far North – but they are hidden.
‘‘They are usually behind a fence.’’
These unsafe and cold homes with no carpet or curtains were out of sight and out of mind so that ‘‘we don’t have to feel or think about it’’, she said.
Sometimes she had come across garages where people have been living, she said.