Relations between Te Pāti Māori and Labour have veered between fiery and frosty since the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election campaign.
But Labour’s Māori caucus chair Willie Jackson reckons the two parties are actually almost fully aligned.
“We agree on about 90% of kaupapa.”
And he doesn’t see their recent differences stopping them working together in future.
Jackson said he’d recently ‘had a cuppa tea’ with Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere.
“The reality is today,... that our relationship is good.”
His comments in an interview with The Hui host Julian Wilcox on Monday come after Jackson himself labelled a Te Pāti Māori MP’s comments ‘racist’ and Labour leader Chris Hipkins described the comments by Takuta Ferris as ‘incompatible with Labour’.
Recent political polls indicate that Labour would need both Te Pāti Māori and the Greens to defeat the coalition government in next year’s general election.
Jackson believed the parties could work together, adding that many Māori were frustrated by the spat over Ferris’s comments.
“A lot of our people are looking at that and thinking ‘This is nonsense. We want to unite. We want kotahitanga,” says Jackson.
He told Wilcox Labour was shocked by the scale of Te Pāti Māori’s win in Tāmaki Makaurau, but its strategy now was looking forward.
“You know, you could go and jump off the Auckland Harbour Bridge afterwards because it was a pretty resounding win, or you could say, hey, we just got to take it on the chin and look at the other seats and re-strategise, re-prioritise.
‘Everyone loses in this game. Shane (Jones), Winston (Peters), JT (Tamihere) myself, we’re all losers...Everybody loses, and we just have to get on with it.”
Jackson said Labour’s focus was getting rid of the coalition government by reminding voters of their struggles in health, housing, education and jobs.
“I think that our people will come back. Tamaki was a one-off,” he said
Made with the support of Te Māngai Pāho and New Zealand On Air
