Mata with Mihingarangi Forbes

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is shaping up to be one of the tightest races this election. We speak to its two leading candidates Cushla Tangaere-Manuel (Labour) and Meka Whaitiri (Te Pāti Māori).

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Shane Jones outlines NZ First's campaign to re enter parliament - their policies and priorities, including their controversial transgender toilet policy. Then we hear from commentators Tau Henare and Bernie O'Donnell

Watch the video version of the episode here.

Shane Jones outlines NZ First's campaign to re enter parliament - their policies and priorities, including their controversial transgender toilet policy. Then we hear from commentators Tau Henare and Bernie O'Donnell.

New Zealand First's campaign slogan 'Take back our country' is focused on five key issues: Taking a stand against racist separatism; fighting Australian owned banks and a supermarket duopoly; investing in health, social services and crime prevention; tax reform; and taking on the gangs.

NZ First is also promising to ban trans women from women's toilets and to make English an official language of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Jones was part of a group which petitioned the government to "give effect to the aspirations" of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1978.

Jones said a lot of what they set out to achieve in terms of the Treaty had been delivered upon.

"Where I've ended up parting company is the way in which the Treaty has been, I feel unhinged from its moorings... and now it's used as a justification for every inequity that befalls us as a people."

It was impossible to deal with issues such as higher Māori mortality rates, truancy and prison rates simply by invoking the Treaty, he said.

"I genuinely feel that with the ideological fervour driving for co-governance, it has the capacity to weaken our status as a nation."

New Zealand had some big internal challenges and there was the potential for Sino-American conflict in the Pacific, he said.

"I'm very worried about internal bickering undermining our capacity and our robustness as a nation."

The best way to deal with inequities for Māori was by providing diverse delivery of services on the front line, he said.

"If you judge the quality of the service based on the outcome that's positive, but if you pretend by invoking the name of the Treaty and dredging up yet more tribunal reports, you're going to improve the quality of front-line service - I thoroughly disagree with that."

On the banning of trans women from women's toilets, Jones said there had been "no shortage of people" that had told the party it was an issue that needed to be addressed.

Jones said he believed attaching Māori names to organisations was tokenism in that doing so did not provide any corresponding improvement in services for Māori...

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In a special extended interview, Minister for Māori Development, Broadcasting, and Media Willie Jackson discusses housing, homelessness, Māori broadcasting, and his political future.

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In a special extended interview, Minister for Māori Development, Broadcasting, and Media Willie Jackson discusses housing, homelessness, Māori broadcasting, and his political future.

Labour MP Willie Jackson has described the Kiritapu Allan saga as "maybe the saddest thing I've ever seen".

Jackson, the manager for Labour's campaign to win the Māori seats at this year's election in October, told Mata he was planning to spend Wednesday with the former minister of justice.

"We talk every couple of days, but heartbreaking stuff, you know what I mean?" he told host Mihingarangi Forbes.

"We love Kiritapu, I know I do and my family does. She's a bit of a hero for my daughter, for a lot of young women, you know?"

Allan resigned all her ministerial portfolios in July after being charged with careless use of a motor vehicle and refusing to accompany a police officer following a car crash in Wellington. She had returned a breath test over the legal limit, but at a level only considered an infringement offence.

The incident capped off a difficult few months for the East Coast MP, following allegations of bullying, a controversial speech made at a farewell party for an RNZ employee she was engaged to, then the split from her fiancé, and taking time away from Parliament on mental health leave.

"I've never seen anything quite like it," Jackson said of the car crash.

"We've never seen a justice minister get into this kind of trouble. But it doesn't take away the fact that she's got huge talent, she's passionate, a wonderful young woman.

Allan remains the MP for East Coast, but will not contest the election in October. Jackson did not believe the charges meant the end of her political career.

"As I kept saying to her, 'You're only 39.' I've lived my life around people who have come back in terms of redemption. Kiritapu can do anything - she's a great entertainer, a lot of fun, she's a strong advocate. She's actually brilliant in that legal area - I've loved working with her in Parliament because she can break down all the intricacies, so well. Some of us do the fronting and all that, but man, can Kiritapu break stuff down. ...

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60-year-old closed adoptee Jenny Small is looking for her whakapapa. But the search to find her whānau is complex. It involves one of New Zealand's most notorious psychiatric institutions and a 68-year-old law that cut thousands of Māori off from their identity.

60-year-old closed adoptee Jenny Small is looking for her whakapapa. But the search to find her whānau is complex. It involves one of New Zealand's most notorious psychiatric institutions and a 68-year-old law that cut thousands of Māori off from their identity. We'd like to advise listeners that this report contains traumatic accounts of minors kept in mental health facilities.

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In this special episode of Mata Mihingarangi Forbes hosts a panel discussion about Meka Whaitiri's defection from the Labour Party to join Te Pāti Māori. Her guests are former Te Pāti Māori MP Marama Fox, former Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels, former Labour executive member Shane Te Pou and Morgan Godfery.

Whaitiri will replace the candidate already chosen for the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate by Te Pāti Māori, Heather Skipworth, who has agreed to step aside.

In 2020 Labour won 67 percent of the party vote while Te Pāti Māori took just 12 percent and the seat has not been flipped in 27 years, Forbes said.

Fox said Whaitiri's move would not be an easy decision for some to stomach, however, she believed it was "a master move" by party president John Tamihere. The timing was perfect with the prime minister overseas and it avoided a by-election by being within six months of the general election.

"It needed to come now if it was going to come at all but I do think there might be more following in her stead."

Godfery said it was moving to watch Whaitiri advance the reasons for her decision which had now started to make some political sense.

Invoking the struggle over Māori land for the last 100 or so years and then linking it to the lack of progress over the last five or six years (while Labour has been in government) made a lot of sense for her as a politician but also for the wider Māori political movement.

"So I think there'll be a lot of sympathy for Meka."

However, Fox was more sceptical and believed that Tamihere was the "master crafter of these political movements". She had sat across the benches from Whaitiri while she smashed Te Pāti Māori and instead held up Labour as representing the Māori voice.

There were other Māori who had become dissatisfied with Labour, such as Louisa Wall, while others such as Willie Jackson and Peeni Henare had considered moving over to Te Pāti Māori before sticking with Labour, Fox said.

She accused Labour and National of not having Māori at the forefront of their political aspirations.

"The true voice of Māori sits in the hands of Māori and our people need to come to that understanding that they are not being taken care of under the current political climate whether it's blue or red."

Fox believed with Te Pāti Māori's social media presence growing and a stronger engagement at grass-roots level it was a great time to be part of what it stood for.

"We are growing in this space of rangatiratanga and the Māori Party is the home for this voice."

She believed Whaitiri would retain the seat although it would be "a hard road" for her. ...

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