Sunday 1st May, 2011

Q+A’s Guyon Espiner interviews Hone Harawira

Points of interest:

- Harawira happy if “not a cent” of public money is spent on Te Tai Tokerau by-election

- Mana Party aiming for 3-4 seats in election

- Says, “Hell yes”, Don Brash is comparable to Adolf Hitler and most Maori agree: Brash would “denigrate Maori”

- “I am very, very at odds with a lot of the things that the Maori Party is doing”

- Mana will honour truce with Maori Party and not stand candidates in Maori electorates

- Maori Party “fell down” because its MPs “jumped into bed [with National] before we were ready”

- Mana targets Maori Party voters, as Harawira says 90% of those at Mana launch Maori Party voters

- Says Maori would be foolish to vote for Maori Party-National-ACT coalition

- Brash’s policies will destroy Maori culture, will reduce them to just another ethnic minority

- Denies by-election is a waste of money, claims it’s democratic right

- Recent method of change in ACT leadership is undemocratic

- Admits he is not good at compromise, and that party leadership is not a natural fit for him

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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Hone Harawira interviewed by Guyon Espiner

GUYON You said yesterday in your speech, ‘Let today be the day we reject the politics of compromise.’ To reject the politics of compromise is to, essentially, reject politics itself, isn’t it?

HONE HARAWIRA – Mana Leader
No. I guess what I was referring to there is the compromise of principle. You can’t be a party that preaches kaitiakitanga and then sit back and do nothing when Petrobras is allowed to start surveying, and has the option to drill in the Raukumara Basin. You can’t preach the principle of whanau and then vote for an increase in GST. That’s the compromise I’m talking about. Compromise of strategy is political action; compromise of principle is death.

GUYON And you’re good at speaking against things, but when you talked about things like abolishing GST and nationalising utilities, even if you had a good relationship with Labour or National, that would be extremely unlikely to happen. The reality is neither of them even want to work with you, so this just becomes big talk which will never happen, doesn’t it?

HONE Well, Phil Goff said that he wasn’t prepared to work with me, but hands up anybody in this room who thinks Phil Goff’s gonna be around after the election. Phil Goff’s gone. Now, I’ve already had, and you’ve heard, uh, Labour MPs from right across the spectrum in Labour say that they’re more than happy to work with me, so—

GUYON This is the party you said you’d never forgive for the seabed and foreshore—

HONE Taihoa, taihoa. So that’s Labour. In terms of the Greens, I already have a really good working relationship with the Greens, and have had for quite some time. So the issue about who can work with who, that’s what you call political posturing, because everybody waits until after the election is over, sees what the numbers are, and then they make the phone calls.

GUYON They compromise.

HONE They do. I won’t need to, cos I’ll just be there waiting for the phone call.

GUYON Yeah. They compromise, though, eh.

HONE That’s their business.

GUYON Yeah, and you’ll have to, too, to get absolutely anything done.

HONE Well, um, one of the things I have really appreciated about the Greens is that for the last couple of session of Parliament they’ve chosen to be on the cross-benches, and build their capacity as a party. I think that that’s where we fell down as a Maori party: we jumped into bed before we were ready. We actually began compromising ourselves on the very first day we got in.

GUYON I wonder if this party itself isn’t a compromise. I mean, you came into Parliament saying you were there to defend and advance Maori rights. You’ve talked about a separate Maori Parliament. You’re even on record as saying that you didn’t really care what Pakeha voters think. Now you team up with these Pakeha guys – are these the same ones who have been colonising NZ and, you know, the mother-effers who’ve been ripping us off and raping our land for 160 years?

HONE No. Actually, these are the people who have been defending the Maori right to defend Maori land, to defend Maori forest, to defend fisheries, etc, etc. We talk about the sort of Pakeha who want to be involved in what it is that I’m talking about here. There’s two groups, really. There are the very very strong activist group right throughout the country, and two, there’s the ordinary NZer who just don’t buy Phil Goff as the champion of the poor any longer, as the defender of the faith and as the person who’s gonna fight for their right to live a decent life in the land of milk and honey.

GUYON So that’s interesting. So you’re actually after the votes of the Labour Party, not the Maori Party.

HONE Oh, I mean, I have to say that the people who are most supportive of the things that I’m doing are actually the hugely disaffected and disillusioned Maori Party membership. In fact, all of the meetings that I’ve attended around the country have been called by Maori Party branches, by Maori Party members who have said that they’re walking from the Maori Party. If you was to look at all of those people at the meeting yesterday that was held at Mahurehure Marae, of all of the Maori who were there, I’d say a good 90% of them would have been Maori Party members.

GUYON So the truce is off if you’re after their vote. You just said that.

HONE I may be after their vote, but the deal is that I’m not standing in their electorates. That’s the only deal we have. Now, I have every right to target the party vote in terms of the Maori seats and in terms of the general seats. So there’s no issue there.

GUYON I wonder then whether you’ve just simply fractured the Maori vote at a time where we see Don Brash re-entering the political fray, a guy who wants to abolish the Maori seats, who wants to abolish race-based funding. I wonder whether you are fracturing the Maori vote at a time when perhaps you need to defend that most.

HONE Given that Don Brash is likely to be a very close friend of National, and given that the Maori Party is already a good friend of National, you’re hardly fracturing the Maori vote. Those who want to stay with Don Brash and John Key are more than happy—

GUYON No, no, you’re fracturing the Maori vote between the Maori Party and the Mana Party. You’re going after their vote, you’ve told us that

HONE No, hang on. The Maori Party is an ally of National, and National is an ally of Don Brash, OK? I’m not after that vote at all. Any Maori foolish enough to vote for that kind of coalition is welcome to do so. I’m after the intelligent Maori vote, I’m after the Maori vote that is keen to see a turn away from that style of politics, I’m after the Maori vote that wants to see a sense of independence and a sense of justice not just for Maori but for ordinary NZers.

GUYON Let’s talk about Don Brash and those policies for a second… [technical error] I’ll quote you here, cos I’ve got it here in writing. ‘Hitler had plans for the Jews. Pauline Hanson had similar plans for the Aboriginal people of Australia. Don Brash wants Maori to be subsumed within the larger culture of this country and to become one people.’ I mean, do you still compare him to Hitler?

HONE Hell, yes. Maori people generally compare him to Hitler.

GUYON That’s a fair and accurate comparison to a guy who exterminated six million Jews?

HONE Working NZers – those who still have a job – beneficiaries and the poor absolutely hate the politics Don Brash brings to this country. And I am very much the same kind of a NZer. I don’t buy that stuff, eh.

GUYON In what way is he like Hitler?

HONE Anybody who will introduce policies that aim to destroy the culture that is indigenous to this land should be stopped in their tracks before they get a chance to do it. I intend to do that by being the leader of a party that will be the point of difference between the politics of intelligence and the politics of the Right.

GUYON Some people would argue that you and Don Brash are different sides of the same coin.

HONE Heaven forbid.

GUYON Well, they would argue that you are racist at times, saying things like you don’t want your children to date Pakeha people.

HONE Oh, that’s hardly racist, Guyon. Come on.

GUYON Isn’t it? What are the racist things that Don Brash has said, then? Isn’t it racist? You’re favouring one race over another. Isn’t that the definition of racism?

HONE Nah, nah, nah. Settle down here, Guyon. Did I say I would—

GUYON I’m very calm about this. I’m just asking you whether that’s a racist comment.

HONE Did I say I would stop my children from dating Pakeha?

GUYON You said you didn’t want them to.

HONE No, no, no. Have you got that quote here? Because that wasn’t the quote.

GUYON What did you say, then?

HONE I think you need to be really clear.

GUYON You know what you said, so tell us.

HONE If you’re gonna sit there and accuse me of being racist and base it on a quote, then I think you need to get the quote.

GUYON What is it?

HONE The quote is that I would feel uncomfortable. In the same way you would probably feel uncomfortable, um, if you had children and one of them came home with somebody in a full-face burkha. We all have our differences, Guyon, we all have our prejudices, we all have our feelings of our children and the sorts of things we want to see them—

GUYON So when you say it it’s OK and it’s just a prejudice that everyone has, and when Don Brash says something you don’t like, he’s like Hitler.

HONE What’s the fuss here? The point I’m trying to make is this: if Don Brash comes back in, the politics that he tried to introduce way back in 2003, 2004, 2005 are the politics that I would oppose. They are the politics that would denigrate Maori, that would reduce us to being simply another ethnic minority in our own country. They are the politics that would destroy the lives of the poor in this country. They are the politics that would cast aside beneficiaries. They are the politics that would probably shorten up the 90-day bill to be a 60-day bill and then a 30-day bill so that NZers end up becoming slaves in their own land. Those are the politics of unacceptable policies, and I stand against that absolutely.

GUYON We talk about your plans as announced yesterday. You intend to fight a by-election. How can you possibly justify a $500,000 public expense when there’s gonna be an election scheduled for the 26th of November anyway?

HONE Don’t mean to be rude, Guyon, but that’s the right of every NZer to choose the MP for their area based on the policies that that person puts—

GUYON But you’re already the MP and there’s an election coming in six months.

HONE If you don’t mind. They elected me as a member of the Maori Party. I’m no longer a member of the Maori Party. In fact, I am very very at odds with a lot of the things that the Maori Party is doing right now. So therefore it’s beholden upon me to go back to the people and say, ‘I am heading in this direction. You have a choice – you can vote for me or you can vote for the other chap.’

GUYON Isn’t it just a campaign platform on the public purse?

HONE I’d be happy if they spent not a cent on it and just allowed it to be Kelvin spent the money that he needed and I spent the money I needed. I spent $12,000 of my own money in 2008 and $13,000 of my own money in 2005. It’s not a big expense. The fact of the matter is, though, that democracy costs money. Now, you have to ask yourself, Guyon, whether democracy is important or whether the corporate style of politics that Act has, where the leader actually gets rolled by somebody who’s not even in the party, without even any discussion with the members of the party or the electorate that the guy’s a member of – you know, is that the style of politics that we want? Because that’s the style of politics that’s being brought in, where democracy gets thrown out the back and, as you saw yesterday, Don Brash gets to meet with the board of Act. Is that democratic? Is that the way NZers were raised to believe that we should be voting for and endorsing our political leaders? I don’t think so.

GUYON You said to me on this programme last year, or it could have been the year before, it doesn’t matter – Um, when I asked you about whether you wanted to lead the Maori Party, you said essentially that you didn’t have the skills or the diplomacy. Isn’t that really the case today as you look to head a new party?

HONE Yeah, it is. I still struggle with that concept of, uh, of diplomacy and tact. I struggle with it—I don’t think I’m naturally good at that; I’m naturally a fighter. I’m naturally a warrior for the rights of the poor, for the rights of Maori. And, you know, to lead a political force is a new thing for me. But it’s just something that I’ll have to learn to grow with.

GUYON Final question – what would success look like?

HONE Myself back in Parliament with at least Annette Sykes and hopefully two or three others who are noted internationally for being strong and uncompromising defenders of the poor, and upholders of the faith.

ends

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