Maori Party candidate for Te Tai Tokerau will pull adverts if Cunliffe comes clean

Maori Party Te Tai Tokerau candidate Te Hira Paenga today said that he would be prepared to pull or change his campaign advertisements as soon as Labour Party leader David Cunliffe takes an unequivocal stand on not working with the Maori Party, but not until then.

“Our ads will be running for the next two weeks in Northland and Auckland and we make the perfectly accurate statement that the Māori Party can work with either National or Labour and that, for Te Tai Tokerau, the Maori Party is the only party that is guaranteed to have influence irrespective of who forms the government.

“We have said that the Māori Party does not stand for left or right, we stand as Māori, for Māori and with no other agenda - Nō reira Hoki Mai, Tautoko Mai, Tū Māori Mai.

“Mr Cunliffe says that he has ruled us out but is not prepared to unequivocally state that he would rather take Labour into opposition, than work with the Maori Party.

“Until he makes that unequivocal statement we stand by our ad. I do not believe for a minute that Mr Cunliffe would be prepared to go into three more years of opposition and imperil his position as leader of the Labour Party, just to score a political point.

“But I could be wrong and if Mr Cunliffe wants to clearly state that this is his position then I will be happy to change my ads, but not until he has fronted up unequivocally and said so.”

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