“I just want to make it clear, here, that Te Paati Maori’s not left or right – we are Maori and we are straight up the guts,” Rawiri Waititi said in a Newshub interview yesterday.
He says they want to hold the balance of power and they don’t want the status quo, because “it doesn’t work for our people”.
When asked if the party wants to be inside the government or on the cross-benches, he replies, “I think the balance of power is not sitting on the cross-benches or not sitting in government and so this is what constitutional transformation looks like.”
When it is suggested that might look like chaos, Waititi laughs and responds, “I wouldn’t call it chaos. I’d call it development.”
He asserts the Maori Party will be kingmaker. “We’re there now.”
See more here. Discuss it on The BFD.
