If there is one thing that Te Pati Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer would like, it is time for a decent cup of tea ... not for herself, but for the country.
"We need to take the time to sit down and have a proper discussion," she said.
"We need to be comfortable in talking about the uncomfortable."
The day the ODT meets Te Pati Maori, Ms Ngarewa-Packer is flying solo, her co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, having — again — fallen foul of the Speaker and been suspended from Parliament ... no easy feat since the more thick-skinned Adrian Rurawhe took over the big seat from Trevor Mallard.
Mr Waititi’s offence was yet another example of what has made Te Pati Maori stand out from its peers this Parliament: its MPs are utterly authentic and instinctively say what they think without first pausing to pass it through a political lens.
"I think that is so true," Ms Ngarewa-Packer said.
"It’s really important that we are transparent, and one of the key things about our Maori world view is that it is seen as being exclusive and that we only think about Maori. My mother is Irish, we live in a country where the mainstream language is English, so the whole concept that we are a cultural rights space party is quite bizarre.
"Being authentic is about making sure that we bring a rebalance with our indigenous whenua perspective into Aotearoa and politics."
Although Te Pati Maori has a wide-ranging and far-reaching set of election policies, a programme which extends well beyond any issues perceived as being purely Maori, a question about the issue of co-governance is inevitable.
It is a phrase Ms Ngarewa-Packer dislikes intensely, feeling that each side should come to the table in the interest of the strength of unity, as envisaged by the Treaty. That said, she understands why the concept of Maori and non-Maori working together to co-manage assets can make some people angry and others afraid.
"To be honest, I actually really get that and I often say I hate it that we often only get snippets, a few seconds of the conversation that we have here, not the whole context of the discussions that we have here.
"I hate that we have made the ‘co’ of anything seem so repellent, and that the perception that the debate is about something that is about to be lost rather than something to be gained. The people who are poking that boil are festering it for their own political and, let’s be honest, commercial gain.
"But there is such a lot in the co’ing of anything — when we co-parent, when we do things in co-operation and partnership — that means we are open to anything.
"We share our culture — if you consider Matariki, that belongs to everyone — and, most importantly, there is nowhere else that it can belong apart from here."
Te Pati Maori is a challenge to the status quo, Ms Ngarewa-Packer said: when half the population was earning less than $30,000 (the median weekly income), that was not good enough.
"People are being hit like a tennis ball because we are entering into an election period, but there so many opportunities."
The role of the state should be to find ways to raise everyone out of poverty — "not just Maori, but everyone" — and find ways to reach those in genuine hardship.
"The state, by the mere fact that it represents the Crown, has a relationship and obligation to the treaty and there is a whole lot that could be done in that space, from encouraging people to get an education to taking a restorative approach to justice," Ms Ngarewa-Packer said.
Te Pati Maori policies include taking GST off food, imposing capital gains and wealth taxes, and substantially revamping the tax brackets and tax rates so that high income earners pay more, initiatives which would support the have-nots rather than the haves, she said.
"About 40% of our population is under 40 years old and 25% of Maori are under 21 years old and most cannot afford proper healthcare and are not doing well at school ... everyone benefits if we improve that.
"They call it a cost of living crisis. It’s not, it’s a poverty crisis ... and we are doing nothing to shift that."
Te Pati Maori are favoured by most observers to retain the Waiariki seat which Mr Waititi won in 2020, and to win the Te Tai Hauāuru seat which Ms Ngarewa-Packer narrowly lost.
In addition, it may well win other seats or, in the alternative, could poll enough party votes to bring more MPs in.
Although an earlier incarnation of the party was able to work well with National, it seems far-fetched to imagine its current leaders around a Cabinet table with Christopher Luxon and David Seymour. If Labour needed Te Pati Maori to form a government, it would need to offer plenty Ms Ngarewa-Packer said.
"We want to be part of a transformation, and that means profound change for the better for a large part of our population who are not thriving. We want to see a healthy redistribution of wealth to support all citizens of Aotearoa.
"Once we know that our people, our whanau, are well, we want to make sure that our whenua is well too ... when we can do that, then we know that we can survive.
"We do not want to be incremental — we want to be bolder."
Ngarewa-Packer on:
Separatism: "People accuse us of being separatist, but we represent 20% of the population and we have never left anyone behind."
Culture: "There are people who haven’t got that blessing of connection, and ideally we would have that discussion away from politics."
Colonialism: "It is a word that we are not comfortable with but we have to get past that and get out of the swamp. If a Māori person is seen in a hospital before someone else, I totally get how that must look if you just woke up that day, but it is about equity."
Poverty: "It is an issue for everybody because it is what creates the complex social issues that we have."
Local issues
The new Dunedin hospital: "The budget is important but this is a critical inter-generational investment and they need to carry on with it and build it."
Housing in Queenstown: "We need an empty homes tax on people who allow houses to sit empty."
Oamaru Hospital: "These are communities which are reliant, there is nowhere else to go ... they need to get extra resources down there."
Tiwai Point: "There hasn’t been a discussion about what alternatives could be put forward and I think that should be discussed ... we do need to transition away from twilight energy options."
— Tomorrow. The Opportunities Party leader Raf Manji.
