'Homogenising Māori as a minority' - Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris defends controversial social media post

Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris has doubled down on his controversial social media post about race, at odds with his party's earlier apology.

In the final days of the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, Ferris posted on Instagram, criticising Labour for having "Indians, Asians, Black and pākeha" campaigning for its candidate Peeni Henare.

The post drew the ire of Labour's Willie Jackson, who called it "racist", prompting an apology from Te Pāti Māori, which said its movement had always been for "the people".

In a post to Instagram on Tuesday night, Ferris said seeing members of other ethnic communities campaigning for Peeni Henare should be "unacceptable".

"The Māori seats are for Māori voices only. They're for the Māori people to decide... and then I heard Willie Jackson in the news talking about how 'unacceptable that was from Tākuta' and 'should know better' and 'we care about everyone in the Labour Party."

"Guess what Willie, I don't give a crap who you care about or what you care about. In the Māori seats, it's about the Māori people, Māori only," he said.

Ferris said the initial post was "homogenising Māori as a minority", which Labour was doing in "plain daylight".

Ferris said "homogenising" Māori meant making Māori appear as just another one ethnic group.

"They're homogenising Māori whilst we are fighting for our Māori seat... homogenising means you're making Māori appear as just another one of these ethnic groups in the Māori seat.

"That should blow your mind because it's completely unacceptable and we need to get to a level where we recognise it as unacceptable and we're happy to say it's unacceptable."

Another reason people got their "knickers in a twist" was because the post was written in English, he said.

"If I had made that post in te reo Māori and said, 'titiro whānau, anei te Reipa, whakamahi ana e te Īniana, e te Āhia, e te Mangumangu, me te iwi pākeha hei tango e te tūru Māori mai te ringaringa o te Māori', no one would have had a problem with that.

"The English language struggles to identify other iwi, people's races. The English language doesn't like it, and the reason that they don't like it is because there's a lot of colonial violence attached to it."

Ferris said there was a "hangover" from periods of colonial violence where the English and their language had oppressed Mangumangu (Black), Āhia (Asian) and Īniana (Indian) people.

"The English language always shies away from identifying those people and so they just refer to them as ethnic, ethnics [or] ethnic minorities." he said.

"That's why saying it in Māori, no problem. There's no historical hangover in te reo Māori to name an iwi."

Last week, Jackson told RNZ Māori had relationships with all races.

"He seems to be offside not only with his leader but also with the new Queen. He needs to grow up."

Ferris said he had received many messages of support, and whānau should "not be shy" to speak up.

"They are trying to make us vanish. They are trying to make us disappear into just a small minority in our own country whilst we fight for the damn seats that are there for us, expressly for us."

Ferris and Labour have been approached for comment.

A spokesperson for Te Pāti Māori said the party would address the post "in due course".

Ministers weigh in

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has verbally clashed with Ferris repeatedly in the House before, and said the comments were totally inappropriate.

"He repeated them again last night, it's midnight, it was, a full moon was out, could have a good hard look at his body language, there's something wrong here.

"There's more than meets the eye here."

He refused to explain what he meant by that, but agreed the comments were racist.

"Terribly racist, it's disgraceful. You've got all those people who are out there helping with democracy ... regardless of which party they're working for, are to be congratulated for their contribution voluntarily without pay and here he makes that stupid, racist statement."

In an earlier post to social media, Peters said Ferris had "lost the plot" doubling on his comments.

"If the Māori Party leadership has apologised and called his first racist rant unacceptable, what do they now think of Ferris flipping them the bird and doubling down?

"He also said that Labour's campaign was 'taking a Māori seat away from Māori'. So now he is saying that Peeni Henare is the 'wrong type of Maori'."

Peters said Ferris' "arrogance and destructive attitude" had placed a wedge between Labour and Te Pāti Māori, and he was now a liability to his party.

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said the comments were not okay.

"It doesn't align with the tikanga that I have for myself and certainly doesn't align with the tikanga of the people that I was brought up with. I think that those comments are pretty prejudicial, discriminatory, and unreasonable - particularly of an elected member.

"He has his own views and sometimes they carve from a very dark and dank place."

New Zealand First Minister Shane Jones said it showed Ferris' presence in Parliament "is very limited".

"He's not going to be here very long, I think it just shows a scatter-brained approach to being a parliamentarian."

Asked about Ferris' comments about the message not causing offence in reo Māori, Jones - known as a fluent reo Māori speaker - suggested it was desperation.

"People say desperate things in order to remain relevant and to capture attention. No one cares what Tākuta thinks or says - that's why he's endeavouring to boost his relevance by saying pretty extreme things."

National's Chris Bishop said the post was "racist, pure and simple".

Harmful to communities and kaupapa of kotahitanga - Davidson

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said "I absolutely condemn" Ferris' comments, which were now "getting well into that territory" of racism.

"Those comments should absolutely be condemned. They will create division, they will create, I think, real resentment from a lot of New Zealanders. Is Tākuta Ferris saying that all those New Zealanders with Toitū te Tiriti stickers on their cars and letter boxes need to take them away, unless they're Māori?

"I just think that's not the New Zealand way. It is also not the spirit that some of us have been working very hard over the last couple of years to try and generate."

Hipkins said Labour had always run inclusive campaigns, and Ferris in his post had been claiming a Labour win was somehow taking a seat away from Māori.

Te Pāti Māori's leaders had again apologised for Ferris' comments, he said.

"I contacted the leadership of the Māori Party because I don't think those comments reflect New Zealanders values. I don't think they reflect what the vast majority of New Zealanders believe. The Māori Party, once again, have apologised for Tākuta Ferris' comments and said very clearly that does not represent what the Māori Party believes."

He said he had spoken to co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who was "also very concerned about this ... and I totally accept her and her word on that".

Whether an apology was good enough was a matter for Te Pāti Māori to handle, he said, but if it had been one of his MPs "there would be disciplinary procedures".

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she wanted to acknowledge the diverse communities who were working hard to support tangata whenua and were now campaigning to support Māori wards.

"This is harmful to those communities and to our kaupapa of kotahitanga," she said.

"I know that he is trying to talk about the taonga that are Māori electorates, I understand that, but the way that it has been spoken has landed on communities that we care about in a harmful way."

Like Hipkins, she was glad Te Pāti Māori had apologised and any disciplinary action was a matter for them.

"If it was my MP I would be very clear that this is not something that the Greens uphold and stand for."

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