D Dawson

In an interview with Moana Jackson on Māori TV (May 5), Winston Peters said, “Well we don’t focus on what other parties are doing wrong, we focus on what we’ve got to get right and ensure that we never forget that politics is about people, it’s about local issues it’s about grassroots matters it’s about, above all, the people being the master here, not the servant as the politicians mistake the environment for”.

He said concerning the previous Labour Coalition Government, “I was in Government with them and they were hiding things from me, keeping things away from me, even Willy Jackson had the audacity to say, well, if we’d shown him He Puapua, guess what he would have done?

I was the minister in charge, and they withheld information from me; the deputy prime minister and minister”.

Mr Peters said the He Puapua document was not just a set of guidelines, and that the Labour Government had spent a fortune on it.

He said universities around New Zealand were teaching that Te Tiriti o Waitangi was part of the law, and it was not.

“The ordinary Māori couldn’t give a rat’s derriere about it; they want ordinary things like housing, safe for them and secure, they want health access, they want to take their kids as far as they can go and that’s why New Zealand First is taking off.”

He said, “You Treaty of Waitangi industry people are destroying Māoridom, you are doing nothing for Māoridom at all, and guess what? You are extracting all that should be spent on real Māori causes.

“Take, for example, Māori TV and Māori Radio; if I had spent that money on Māori housing, every Māori family in this country would be housed now.

“The Treaty o Waitangi, the Waitangi Tribunal is way outside of its responsibilities, way outside of its original purpose. Did you know it can only make recommendations?”

Concerning India’s free-trade agreement, “India insisted the text be kept secret until after the signing. It promises that $NZ34 billion goes to India in the next 50 years and India gets free access to our markets now and we have not got free access to theirs, and there is the Treaty o Waitangi clause in it, so why is it there?”

Winston was asked “one last time could New Zealand First go with Labour?”

Answer: “No one gets to lie to me twice like they did, so that’s a no; no-one gets to backstab me,” and “none of your pies on the hard left, the pink pies and the communists not winning this time round” and “Hang on help is on its way”.

I believe this was one of the best and most informative interviews I have ever heard.

We need more mature, wise politicians like Winston.