Twerk all you want for votes but Maori are not your dance off

I’ll get straight to the point. Willie Jackson was right to call David Seymour a useless Maori for no other reason than we have to stop letting him get away with the continuous running down of Maori, our culture and our institutions. And it has been relentless. Some within Maoridom have said let his Iwi take care of it – let them hold him to account. The problem I have with that is lets be realists and not live in unicorn world – he simply does not care. When was the last time David Seymour was on his Marae, the place he claims whakapapa to? When was the last time he was in the back of the dining hall with tea towel in hand doing the dishes and when did he not put Maori down. Let us not deal in half truths and hoha any longer with this man and to be frank, and as Debbie Ngarewa Packer said on my show last night – who was it that stole Davids lunch when he was a boy for him to hate Maori so much?

So those are the facts - the fact is his so called recalibration of the Treaty of Waitangi, the pretence of one nation (we know how that ended for Pauline Hanson right?) and this constant smattering of our institutions is nothing more than a bloke with a chip on his shoulders. Get over yourself David.

And then there is this comment from David: "All the name-calling and all the rest I think is a shame. In that particular instance, [Jackson] had the opportunity to explain why Te Puni Kokiri does add value and should be kept.

How dare you tell Maori to justify a Government Department that has been an institution of Maori doing incredible work for Maori over many, many decades. How dare any Maori have to justify the organisations that serve our people and that includes Iwi, Hapu, Maori organisations, trusts, Marae, kohanga, Kura – you don’t get that right.

And then this pearl of justification: "I am proud of all of my heritage and I am not going to stoop to getting involved with someone like that.”

Well actually David I am calling you on it. You are not proud of your Maori heritage so stop the hoha. And for whomever suggest to me that we should embrace David for his whakapapa I say this – why would I want to embrace someone who is nothing more than a spiteful man playing politics with Maori culture. That’s not an embrace that’s a calling it out and more people should be doing it.

Twerk all want vote scraper because Maori are not your dance off.

Matthew Tukaki, Chair of the National Maori Authority