I voted for Te Pâti Māori when they first entered the Whare Pāremata and they were fresh. To add joy to my vote, I cast it at the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo.
I’ve always wanted them to do well but I lost faith in them when they opted to join John Key’s ratbag lot. I understand why they did it and I respect their reasoning but somewhere in my soul it didn’t add up at all and it still doesn’t.
I don’t know what Te Pâti thinks of that decision now because I simply walked away from them and haven’t been back. I’ve remained loyal in my heart to their cultural intention, but it certainly took a long time for me to forgive them for partnering up with the right-wing coloniser party. Political loyalties matter to me but I’m also capable of ‘crossing over’ if I see real change – or if there’s a strong enough reason – and that’s what happened here. I’ve mostly voted Labour throughout my life but have occasionally deviated for some ethical reason or other. I dumped Labour after the trifecta of fuckery that marred the 5th Labour Government (1999 – 2008): first there was the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed debacle, second was when the Clark and the Party walked away from Georgina Beyer’s Gender Identity Bill in 2006. Even after all those years it’s hard to have respect for Georgie for letting that happen without making something of a stand since the failure to capitalise on that timely opportunity has left my vulnerable community in limbo ever since. If trans rights are human rights, how come I have less basic rights than almost anyone else and certainly less protections.
For me, the final nail in the coffin of that Labour government was the unconscionable 2007 New Zealand police terror raids on the Ngāi Tūhoe Nga Tamariki o te Kohu.
Maybe I’m not that forgiving after all because the pain caused by the 2007 police raids on the alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urawera’s which saw members of the Armed Offenders Squad and Special Tactics Group brutally execute search warrants throughout Aotearoa still runs deep. Those raids were justified using the Terrorism Suppression Act and, according to the cops, were the result of more than a year of surveillance that ‘uncovered and monitored’ the ‘training camps’, training camps that simply didn’t exist.
Somebody was telling colossal porkies, and Prime Minister Helen Clark still denies that she had any prior knowledge of the raids or that they were going to happen. Sorry Helen, but I call utter bullshit on that. You were Minister in charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, the Minister Responsible for the GCSB, and you (or Heather Simpson) were reputed to have a finger in all the gastronomic treats your government was cooking up, and it stretches credibility to suggest that you were ignorant of this carefully planned cultural clusterfuck is absolutely beyond belief.
The Solicitor-General at the time David Collins declined to press charges against anyone under the Terrorism Suppression Act legislation and only Tame Iti and Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara were convicted but of firearms charges and they did time as scapegoats for the cops and for the government for what was the most massive and most damaging political cock up in my lifetime.
Yes, I’m still pissed about it, and the images of those terrified kids on their school bus will haunt me forever.
We had to wait until 2013 for the publication of the Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA) report following its investigation into complaints about police actions during the raids, particularly those relating to roadblocks and the execution of search warrants. The IPCA concluded that although the planning and preparation for the execution of search warrants was “largely in accordance with policy”, the planning and preparation for the establishment of roadblocks in Ruatoki and Tāneatua was “deficient” and a number of aspects of the police raids were “contrary to law and unreasonable”. The police spokesman for the Labour Party acknowledged that innocent people had been “unnecessarily frightened and intimidated” and in 2014 the Police Commissioner formally apologised to the Ruatoki community and Ngāi Tūhoe for police actions during the raids.
In my opinion, noapology would ever be enough to erase the memories of the terror inflicted by the state on the people of Ngāi Tūhoe on those awful days and it took the election of Dame Jacinda Ardern to enable me to turn my face back to Labour and I have absolutely no regrets about that.
I have to say I’ve been hugely impressed by Te Pâti Māori this time around, and I can really understand the importance they place on not taking a backward step with this Trumpist government. I really appreciate Rawiri and Debbie taking every opportunity to hold the coalition’s feet to the fire because it’s the least that these racist bastards deserve. If Seymour’s socks caught fire, I’d happily let his feet toast in perpetuity before I’d even do wees on them to put them out.
While I’m a fan and a staunch supporter, this doesn’t necessarily mean I will cast my vote for them in 2026 as there are times when political expediency rules the heart – but I’ll be with them in every other way.
dykiegirl 