O’Sullivan’s prescription for M¯aori Party revival
The Ma¯ori Party is out but doesn’t need to be down. Benn Bathgate and Elton Smallman report.
OPINION: For Bill English, last night was personal. Call it resilience, or a sheer bloodyminded will to win at any cost.
In his own words, he ‘‘got back up’’.
English doesn’t wear the crown yet, but the second-time National leader has stared down the ghosts of a humiliating defeat in 2002 to usher his party through the gate ahead of Labour.
Without the enigma of John Key, and against the full force of ‘‘Jacindamania’’, English is personally redeemed.
But National hasn’t crossed the line just yet, and this was hardly a romp.
In what was one of the hardest-fought campaigns New Zealand has seen in decades, both National and Labour engaged in mistruths - National by far the more cynically.
It’s the politicking that favours the right and they remain in the box seat to govern for a rare fourth term. Now we test what democracy means in this country.
Both parties still face a protracted stare-down at the negotiating table with NZ First leader Winston Peters. He has a moral duty to begin negotiations with the largest party first, but certainly no constitutional obligation.
Labour and the Greens will be jointly weaving a net large enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Just what will Winston demand is the question many will ask, but perhaps a more pertinent one: what will both major parties do to avoid dealing with him? There is already a suggestion National is cooking up an offer the Greens would find difficult to refuse.
Mythologising about the socalled ‘‘youthquake’’ turned out to be wishful thinking. And while the final polls came close, never has the number-crunching been so unreliable, yet affected the outcome so greatly.
Polling claimed the scalps of both Andrew Little and Metiria Turei, and it instated Jacinda Ardern as Labour Party leader.
Her achievement has been nothing short of incredible: with an hour’s notice she stepped into the breach and redeemed her party from its humiliating defeat in 2014.
Cold comfort perhaps, but there’s clearly an intention to scrap it out.
If you thought the election was brutal, just wait until it gets to the negotiating table.
New Zealand’s had its say. Now it’s time for Peters to have his. The Ma¯ori Party is gone.
In a blood bath, voters went to the polls and painted the seven Ma¯ori electorates red.
From north to South, Labour took all of the Ma¯ori seats in emphatic style. Ma¯ori have returned ‘home’ to Labour.
Te Ururoa Flavell was the Labour Party’s biggest scalp. Waiariki electorate opponent Tamati Coffey led from the start of the count until Flavell’s concession.
Flavell was convinced the Ma¯ori Party’s record would speak for itself.
‘‘It’s a record of delivering on our promise that we will defend Ma¯ori rights and we have in terms of the candidates, we’ve said we will advance Ma¯ori interests and we have through the development of Wha¯nau Ora, moving into the housing space, land reforms with the passing of the Te Ture mo Te Reo Ma¯ori - all of those developments have been important.’’
But Coffey said voters didn’t want to be hitched to the National Party bus.
Unfortunately for the voters, with National polling so high and the Ma¯ori Party out of politics altogether, Ma¯ori may be looking at three years without in Government.
They may be out but they won’t be kept down, supporters say.
Dr Lance O’Sullivan may just be the right man to come up with the correct prescription to get the Ma¯ori Party back into Parliament.
In what was perhaps an early diagnosis of the election night wipe out that saw the Party ejected from Parliament, former New Zealander of the Year O’Sullivan announced his intention to stand at the 2020 election ahead of this year’s vote.
He sensed at the time – correctly – the need to pull out all the stops to boost the party vote.
Despite Saturday’s result, he’s optimistic about the future of the Party. ‘‘I believe they will come out of this in better shape,’’ he promises.
But O’Sullivan has a number of ideas to get the party back on its feet: firstly a focus on youth voters, secondly moving to expand the representation Ma¯ori Party’s appeal beyond core Ma¯ori voter base.
On the second idea, he believes progress is already underway, citing Manakau East candidate Tuilagi Namulauulu Saipele Esera, of Samoan descent, and Botany candidate Wetex Kang, who is of Malay and Chinese descent.
‘‘How do you support the expansion of that, underpinned by Ma¯ori values,’’ O’Sullivan asks.
He says it’s also time to think beyond National and Labour, right and left, and truly utilise the opportunities available under an MMP system. ‘‘Why aren’t we aspiring to be the first minority Government? Less left and right, a technicolour coat of Government.’’
While O’Sullivan remains optimistic about the future, in the shorter term some Ma¯ori Party supporters feel it’s not just the party, but a people shut out of a voice in Government.
‘‘I’m disappointed just because I don’t have confidence the best its interests of Ma¯ori will be heard,’’ says Rotorua-based Ma¯ori Party voter Dana Kinita.
She says that while there remain strong Ma¯ori MPs in Parliament, it’s not enough. ’’Of course it will impact Ma¯ori, because we’ll be relegated to the steps of Parliament protesting and we know that hasn’t worked. They [The Ma¯ori Party] were invited to be at the table of Government and they had achieved gains.’’
‘‘We’re on a dangerous track with this water debate too. That’s making me nervous.’’
While concerns persist about the coming three years, Kinita is optimistic for the longer term future of the Ma¯ori Party.
‘‘We need to rebuild, strengthen from the inside. We’ve got a lot of talented, experienced Ma¯ori in economics, law, that next generation who haven’t looked into politics,’’ she says.
‘‘I don’t think this the Ma¯ori Party.’’ is the end of