Sunday 1st May, 2011

Q+A’s Guyon Espiner interviews Dr Pita Sharples

Points of interest:

Declares ‘truce’ between Harawira and Maori Party dead, as result of Harawira calling by-election: “that’s broken”

Maori Party won’t rule out working in a coalition that included a Don Brash-led ACT party

Mana Party members are “megaphone people”, who are unwilling to compromise and unlikely to achieve policy objectives

Denies Harawira’s claim that Maori party has been sounding out potential candidates to stand against him in Te Tai Tokerau electorate

BUT refuses to rule out standing a candidate against him in any by-election; decision will be made by Te Tai Tokerau leaders

Claims Harawira’s desired by-election will come at cost of refurbishing around 200 Maori state houses

The key for bettering the lives of Maori is having more Maori MPs inside the government

Harawira playing ‘newspaper politics’, which is not Maori way

Describes John Key’s attitude towards Maori as positive

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be watched again on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE. Repeats at 9.10pm Sundays, 10.10am and 2.10pm Mondays on TVNZ 7

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Dr PITA SHARPLES interviewed by GUYON ESPINER

GUYON What do you make of Hone Harawira’s Maori party?

PITA SHARPLES – Maori Party Co-leader
Well, that’s Hone’s choice. He found it difficult to work with us and so he left the nest and he’s setting up this party.

GUYON And the kinds of people who he’s got in that party? I mean, there’s some fairly radical protest element there. What do you think his chances are of actually bringing a substantial team of MPs into the House with him?

PITA Well, it’s not really for me to comment on his chances but, you know, you’ve said he’s got a collection of protesters and things. I mean, they are megaphone people and that’s not how you make gains for your people; you’ve got to be in Parliament, you’ve got to be in government and you’ve gotta be sitting at the table and actually changing policy. That’s what we’ve been doing.

GUYON Can I talk briefly about some logistics? Do you see the truce holding? I mean, are you going to stand in Te Tai Tokerau against Hone Harawira?

PITA Well, the truce was about general election and stuff. If he’s going to have a call for a by-election, then really he’s violated the agreement, because his agreement was to stand as the independent member for Tai Tokerau. So once he resigns for a by-election, that’s broken.

GUYON And you will stand, then?

PITA Well, Tai Tokerau have approached us. Hone’s saying that we have, uh, been tapping people on the shoulder to stand against him. That’s absolute rubbish, we wouldn’t do that. But what has happened, especially recently, is Tai Tokerau leaders have come to see me, in particular, asking why have we deserted them. And it’s their decision whether they have somebody to stand or not. So I guess we’re going to review everything as the news breaks, I guess.

GUYON So the truce is dead, really, isn’t it?

PITA I would say it probably is. It has to be if he’s going to stand, uh, by-election, cos he’s no longer kept his promise to be an independent member for Te Tai Tokerau.

GUYON Doesn’t the emergence of this party prove the obvious and inevitable that Maori are just as split along income lines and class lines – I know we don’t like to use that word, but he’s using it – as anyone else? And so you’ve got, rightly or wrongly, him positioning himself as a leftist Maori vehicle, and you, rightly or wrongly, painted into supporting a centre right Maori vehicle.

PITA That’s right, ‘painted into’ is the right word, because what we’ve actually done is to support all those initiatives that Hone’s talking about with his megaphone. But you can’t do it like that, you’ve actually gotta promote the minimum wage, you’ve gotta fight against GST, and we’re doing that with trying to get it off food. You’ve gotta actually stop them eliminating—One of the biggest jobs the Maori Party’s done is to actually stop things happening. So we’ve preserved Maori in the RMA, in the EPA, we’ve got membership in there, and those sort of things. That’s the hard grind.

GUYON Stuff that people don’t notice, often, and you don’t get rewarded for

PITA We don’t get rewarded for it. And that’s really the hard stuff. You know, what we went through to get the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples through was meeting after meeting after meeting.

GUYON Isn’t he right, though, in the sense that Maori do vote left, by and large? If you look at the, um, party votes in the electorate seats, it’s about 50% for Labour. Maori, by and large, vote Labour.

PITA That’s correct, they do vote left. And it’s our job to make sure that all the gains we’ve made are out there before the election, so people can see what we’ve done refurbishing houses, uh, 2400 houses. Hone’s by-election is going to cost, I’d say, 200 homes being refurbished.

GUYON Waste of money?

PITA Well, if you stand for poverty and things like that, which he says he stands for, who is he getting a mandate against if we’re not standing against him? He wants a mandate – stand against the Maori Party and test your mandate. That’s what we’re saying. So, you know, we have a good track record, and our job is to get that track record out there so that people can see what we’re doing.

GUYON The political landscape has changed quite dramatically with the return of Dr Brash. What are your views on that? What are your take, I guess, on the re-emergence of Dr Brash? Because I know you were very critical – I go back to your maiden speech – you were very upset and critical about the way that he used race relations. How do you view his return?

PITA Well, one of his platforms is ‘one law for all’, and I guess behind that is getting rid of things Maori, and so on, so that’s to be seen. But we’ve fought the policies of the Act Party in these last two years from inside.

GUYON Yeah, but you’ve got a stronger opponent now, haven’t you?

PITA Well, I don’t know whether we have or not. We fought over… took the seats off the Auckland Council, but we fought back and we’ve got a statutory body which is probably even stronger, and that’s from the Maori Party.

GUYON The key strategic question, though, is could you be part of a National-led government which included a Don Brash-led Act Party?

PITA Well, we’re part of a government now that has a Rodney Hide-led Act Party, and we’ve battled against many of Rodney’s things, especially his punitive laws, and we’ll continue to do that with Don Brash there. The point is our people have to learn you’ve gotta be in the government. The secret for Maori development is to increase the number of Maori in the government, and that’s why it’s important that we get out there and campaign, tell everyone what we’ve done, and show how important it is to build that capacity.

GUYON I think that’s a central point, so I wanna talk a little bit more about that. But just before we do that can I get a categorical answer from you? So it sounds as though you are prepared to work with a Don Brash-led Act Party in a National-led government.

PITA We’re prepared, always, to work with whichever party will work with us.

GUYON So you’re not ruling him out.

PITA That’s right. It’s not about him, though, it’s about National and Labour really. Those are the two main parties. And both see us as a group of MPs who have integrity and can be relied on to keep our word, and that’s what we are.

GUYON I think your point is right that you have to be in government to make any change, that seems obvious. It seems to me, though, that you failed to communicate that message and convince Maori voters that you’ve done the right thing.

PITA You’re dead right. You see, the difficulty is we don’t want to fight newspaper politics. And Hone has done that very well in the last year or so. And we don’t wanna have that kind of scrap because that’s not part of being Maori and tikanga. We believe that you don’t start soiling each other in the public. Although he’s accused us of so many things that people probably believe him now. So it’s up to us to demonstrate our integrity, in the first place, secondly our very good track record of what we’ve achieved. Take the budget, for example. A good minister is one that increases their budget each time. That’s a mark of your success as an MP. In poor times like this, it’s those who hold their budget, because there’s no extra money. Well, I’ve held mine, and been able to fund some other stuff as well.

GUYON Yeah, but I wonder how much real gain you’ve achieved for Maori. If you look at the Maori Party and you look at the Maori flag, you look at the review of the constitution; you look at a new version of the Seabed and Foreshore Act, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – all big stuff, but symbolic stuff. Meanwhile, Maori are massively over-represented in prisons, higher unemployment, poorer health and education outcomes. What are the real gains, Dr Sharples, that you’ve actually achieved in this term?

PITA OK, furbishing 2400 Maori houses; trade training – we’ve set up so many Infra Train programmes, forestry programmes, and we’re about to launch a big one down in Christchurch; fighting the minimum wage, we do this regularly with the government, up to $15 an hour; GST off food. So these are things that directly—Petrol, drop in the petrol increase—

GUYON GST hasn’t come off food, the last time I looked.

PITA Well, that’s right, it hasn’t. But still, what we’re doing to fight. You see, a lot of our fighting has to happen in the Cabinet room and in Cabinet committees, and stuff like that. So I think that we’ve been very good champions for our people.

GUYON A final question – the relationship between you and John Key was put forward as one that was quite a central one to this relationship, obviously. How do you, two and a half years on, view him as Prime Minister?

PITA Well, I’ve gotta view him in terms of two things: how he’s treated our party – and we’ve had access to the top table whenever we wanted it at Cabinet, and we’ve participated in those events, and that’s gotta be a plus; but secondly, it’s been good working with him. I find his attitude towards Maori is positive.

ends

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