A billion dollars for separatism
Why Te Pāti Māori must never be in government again
I’ll be straight up, I’m not exactly National’s biggest fan at the moment. I voted for them with my electorate vote, but they’ve done plenty that’s frustrated me since getting into government. That said, let’s not kid ourselves here. If Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori were still running this country, it would be an absolute shitshow. At the next election we need to do everything possible to stop them clawing their way back into power. Because if they do, every bit of work National and the coalition have managed to do will be tossed out the window in a heartbeat.
This week we got a very clear glimpse of what life under a Labour–Te Pāti Māori arrangement would look like. Te Pāti Māori candidate Oriini Kaipara went on Mata with Mihingarangi Forbes and stated that if her party is in the next government, they want Whānau Ora funded to the tune of one billion dollars. One billion dollars. That is a staggering figure, and she delivered it with a straight face as if it’s just business as usual for a bunch of people who know absolutely nothing about economics.
Source: https://x.com/Suitandtie9999/status/1958761827942429011
Political commentator @Suitandtie9999 picked up on something interesting – Kaipara didn’t sound like she was speaking from the heart or from experience. She was reading off carefully scripted notes when she brought up Whānau Ora, which tells me this wasn’t a slip of the tongue or some off-the-cuff idea. This is a calculated demand. Suit and Tie raised the obvious question - is this billion-dollar price tag the cost of Te Pāti Māori’s cooperation in a Labour-led coalition?