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Summarised by Centrist
Green candidate Tania Waikato is standing in Waiariki against Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi.
She says her “mission” is constitutional transformation. Asked what this means in practice, her clearest answer was that Te Tiriti should become “the supreme constitutional law of Aotearoa”.
When asked to explain constitutional reform, Waikato showed off fresh hand tattoos reading He Whakaputanga (The 1835 Declaration of Independence), Te Tiriti and “never ceded”. She said New Zealand must acknowledge “where our country came from” and base its legal system on those documents.
Who, precisely, “never ceded” sovereignty? If sovereignty was never ceded, what happens to the authority of Parliament? And what would it mean, in law, for Te Tiriti to sit above ordinary democratic decision-making? However, these were questions that Q+A host Simon Mercep did not pursue.
However, Mercep did query Waikato on her potential future as a party leader despite her not having yet won an MP seat.
Waikato is ranked 13th on the Green Party list, the highest placing for any new candidate and above some sitting MPs.
Waikato claimed she does not want to be an MP, but is doing it because she “has to”. She then volunteered a story about her list ranking.
“I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” she said. “I actually asked if I could go below all of the sitting MPs when the list came out. And that was just out of respect for the sitting MPs.” Despite her claim, Waikato still benefits from the higher ranking.
