Newly elected Māori Pati president and columnist John Tamihere has launched a blistering criticism of New Zealand’s negative media attitude to Chinese trade and security overtures to the South Pacific, saying “it’s none of our business”.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, former Labour cabinet minister Tamihere argued that China had every right to “korero with our Pacific brothers and sisters” without being sneered at.

He said China had handed out a “master class in diplomacy” to Australia, NZ and the US.

An Asia Pacific Report last week noted China had no “colonial baggage in the Pacific” and was a developing country itself, having “made impressive leaps in development and poverty reduction”.

Tamihere, also chief executive of Whānau Ora and West Auckland Urban Māori organisation Te Whānau o Waipareira, said: “I just don’t like the stilted narrative that China is always the bad guy and I don’t buy it because I don’t see the evidence in it.”

He said he would “lower myself for a moment to acknowledge the media reports that China is allegedly buying voting support from the Pacific with military and security intentions in their backyard”.

However, “none of that matters because any sovereign nation has a right to determine its own foreign policy and its own destiny.

‘Pacific taken for granted’
“Meanwhile, [Pacific nations] have been taken for granted and mistreated by the rest of us.

“When was the last time the Americans, Australians and Kiwis entered into trade agreements with our Pacific neighbours?” he asked.

“When you treat people as second-class citizens in your so-called area of interest, why is it so bizarre that they enter into their own trade relationships like we did [with China] in 2008?

In a world first for any developed country, New Zealand entered into a free trade agreement with China that year and opened a competitive advantage.

“Why is it that those eight Pacific nations are currently being ‘manipulated’ [by China] yet we weren’t?

“So it’s okay for the US, Australian and Aotearoa to engage in free trade agreements with China but it’s not okay for the Pacific and Melanesian nations?”

Tamihere said “Aotearoa cannot be drafted without our sovereign consent into any play by Australia or the US”.

He added: “The Australians buying nuclear-powered American submarines demonstrates that they may as well be the 51st state of the USA. Gone is the Anzac brotherhood, it is a myth.

“It is about time we shaped our own foreign policy rather than being dragged along by others.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The calls for New Zealanders to get vaccinated are becoming more urgent by the day as covid-19 embeds itself in the community.

Two people have now died in the latest outbreak, the number of daily cases remains in the double figures and the virus continues to spread outside Auckland.

The government has announced a nationwide immunisation push for October 16 — dubbed Super Saturday — but one of Auckland’s leading Māori vaccinators is questioning what it will achieve.

Te Whānau o Waipareira runs two mass vaccination centres, and has given tens of thousands of Aucklanders their Pfizer shots.

Chief executive John Tamihere said the first he heard of Super Saturday was when Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced it at a media conference, saying it would be like election day, with clinics open all day and into the night

Tamihere said that would not cut it when it came to getting vaccine stragglers.

“They won’t necessarily turn up, the ones they are endeavouring to target. We have to go out into the streets and take each suburb street by street and to do that you’ve got to know where you’re sending and deploying your resources,” Tamihere said.

More resources rather than big show
“We would probably put a lot more resource into that campaign as opposed to big show days.”

The Ministry of Health today reported 29 new cases of covid-19 in the community, including five in Waikato.

Speaking at today’s government briefing, Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay said seven of the new cases in Auckland were yet to be linked to earlier cases, all of the Waikato cases were linked.

Yesterday, the death of a 57-year-old man from covid-19 was reported, along with 39 new cases in the community. Nine of those were in Waikato.

There have now been 22 cases in Waikato in the current outbreak.

One previous community case has been reclassified as under investigation, bringing the total cases in the outbreak to 1448.

There were also two cases detected in MIQ reported today.

7000 receive drive-through dose
But the recent six-day vaccination event at Vodafone Events Centre is being hailed a success after 7000 people received a drive-through dose.

Among them, many church members of the Assemblies of God Church of Sāmoa who know first-hand the harsh reality of the virus.

A father of seven who lost his battle with covid yesterday was a deacon at the church, and his wife is also in hospital with the disease.

Church spokesperson Jerome Mika said the community was grieving.

He said many members had been vaccinated at the drive-through event in the past few days which was a success due to the many community groups that had supported it.

“Community willingness to be able to just support and encourage their family members to come and get vaccinated.”

The experts agree.

Māori and Pacific leaders a must
Victoria University of Wellington immunologist Diane Sika-Paotonu said to be effective, any vaccination campaign must include Māori and Pacific leaders.

“They’re not just being called in right at the end to help make things work but rather they’re involved right from the outset at the design stage of any activities, events and interventions that are being planned.”

But one group argues they need the right information for that model to work.

Tamihere also heads the North Island’s Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency.

It is taking the Ministry of Health to court for refusing to hand over health data for all Māori that he said was vital to closing the “dangerous gap” in the vaccination rates.

It sits at just over 57 percent for a first dose compared with 81 percent of Pākehā.

“Tai Tokerau is way behind, the Bay of Plenty is way behind. These are Māori communities. It’s not that they’re stupid and dumb, it’s that they’re poorer and their priorities are different and it takes time to reach them.”

The Ministry of Health said it could not share the data because many of the people were not enrolled with Whānau Ora so officials were not authorised to hand it over.

The ministry will release information today on the most and least vaccinated suburbs in the country.

Yesterday 63,000 people were vaccinated as rates climb again after a month long dip.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

by Dr Bryce Edwards

Get ready for a more lively local government contest in New Zealand’s biggest city this year. Recent local election campaigns have been relatively dull affairs. In fact, at the last elections in 2016, voter turnout slumped to the lowest level for some time – with only about 38 per cent bothering to turn out. But this year’s Auckland mayoralty contest looks set to be the most colourful in a while.

The contest is shaping up to be between two very different centrist politicians: Phil Goff, the grey technocrat, versus John Tamihere the wild post-political populist.

A red-blue double act of “post-political” unity

Launching his campaign in the weekend, Tamihere surprised many with the campaign he has constructed, which involves big political players from across the political spectrum. In particular, by including Christine Fletcher as his running mate for deputy mayor, Tamihere’s campaign could be seen as a very clever attempt to put forward a “post-political” option for Auckland voters. It’s being sold as a team that is putting its ideological backgrounds and loyalties aside for the good of the wider city. This will have some immediate appeal in our anti-political age.

Auckland Stuff journalist Todd Niall has been covering the recent developments well, and refers to the Tamihere/Fletcher ticket as “a red-blue double act”, but says it isn’t yet clear if the combo is “a stroke of genius, or a strike-out” – see his column today: Which John Tamihere will run for Auckland mayor?

Niall explains the logic behind the red-blue council ticket: “The winners of Auckland’s three previous mayoral contests – Len Brown twice and Phil Goff once –have cleaned up not only in their Labour-heritage heartlands of the west and south, but also done well in blue areas across Pakuranga, Howick and the isthmus. Victory has been about broad appeal”.

But Niall isn’t yet convinced it’s a winning formula, asking the following questions: “Can Tamihere achieve the crossover needed to get election-winning support, and if not can Fletcher’s presence persuade blue voters to “come on in, the water’s fine” ? Can he deliver his strong views on social housing, in a way that doesn’t suggest a conflict of interest with Waipareira? For both Tamihere and Fletcher, can their pairing with a running-mate some might consider a polar opposite, enhance rather than damage their own support bases?”

Nevertheless, Niall also argues that the Tamihere/Fletcher campaign “could be the most intriguing bid yet in four elections in the Super City.” In fact, writing prior to the announcement, he also argued that the campaign was shaping up to be interesting: This year’s race could be the most interesting since the inaugural ‘clash of the titans’ duel of 2010, in which Len Brown beat former National and Act party MP John Banks” – see: The summer of Auckland mayoral wannabees.

In this article, Niall draws attention to the centrist political operating styles of both Goff and Brown as mayors. But he says that a Tamihere-Fletcher combo would be the first campaign to “feature a US Presidential-style running mate”. This “would provide plenty for voters to get their heads around, trying to figure out the direction the pair would take.”

The New Zealand Herald’s editorial on this development in the Auckland mayoral race also says that it “should make for a lively start to local body election year” – see: John Tamihere offers a shake-up to mayoralty but he could be vulnerable to attack .

The Herald explains why the Tamihere/Fletcher combo is strategically clever: “The Labour Party would classify Tamihere on the right too but he will probably have more appeal to many in Labour’s constituency, especially Māori, than to conservative or business-minded voters. It is probably to appeal to the latter constituency that Tamihere is running on a ticket with Christine Fletcher, a former mayor and still a councillor. Fletcher stands to be Deputy Mayor and gives the ticket an element of local body experience that Tamihere lacks.”

The logic of this left-right unity strategy is also put forward by leftwing blogger Martyn Bradbury: “that’s important because the fundamental changes Tamihere is seeking in forcing Central Government to pay for Auckland’s growth and the vast increase in social housing he is proposing will demand across the spectrum support. If elected, Tamihere would be Auckland’s first ever Māori Mayor, something that won’t go unnoticed in the South and West Auckland voting bloc. Tamihere’s attack against the large vested corporate interests of Auckland has been part of his previous attack on Goff and his ‘Auckland for us not them’ narrative will be heard across the city” – see: Tamihere brings together left-right coalition to defeat Goff.

Tamihere’s anti-establishment populism

There’s more than a hint of anti-Establishment politics to Tamihere’s campaign. Everything from his five-point plan, which includes the populist promise to “Clean the house” through to the main slogan of “Shake it up and sort it out” is vintage populist politics, and even reminiscent of some of Donald Trump’s successful 2016 campaign. There’s a very clear theme amongst Tamihere’s campaign, so far, about the need to “take back control”.

Some of this can be seen in TVNZ’s coverage: John Tamihere announces bid for Auckland mayor, crosses party line for running mate. This article reports Tamihere’s “promise to ‘open the books and clean the house’ at Auckland council, ensuring a thorough audit of where taxpayer money is being spent.”

According to TVNZ, Tamihere “said he wants control of the city to go back to the people instead of ‘faceless managers in central Auckland’. Other issues Mr Tamihere has pledged to address include social housing, homelessness, the regional fuel tax and council spending. Key themes of his campaign are integrity, efficiency, democracy and leaving a better legacy for the children of our generation.”

Some of this will resonate widely, especially for those who believe Phil Goff hasn’t been active enough as mayor. See, for example, the Herald’s editorial comments on Tamihere’s pitch, pointing out that Goff hasn’t delivered: “the shake-up he promised for the council last time has hardly happened. The council still seems detached from the needs and concerns of citizens and may need a new broom.”

Tamihere’s running-mate is also channeling a more outspoken style. Bernard Orsman reports: “Christine Fletcher has unleashed an extraordinary attack on Phil Goff, accusing the mayor of weak leadership and failing to make Wellington sit up and listen by holding their feet to the fire” – see: Christine Fletcher calls Phil Goff a weak leader who has failed Auckland.

Amongst many criticisms of Goff, the article points out “Fletcher was one of nine councillors to sign a letter to Goff last year saying he runs a ‘non-inclusive style of leadership’ and trust and transparency at council is getting worse. As deputy designate on a mayoral ticket with Tamihere, Fletcher said Goff works alone behind closed doors with bureaucrats, commissioning expensive reports from consultants that only come to light for councillors under the Official Information Act.”

Phil Goff has responded to some of this criticism, especially about the so-called “Goff gas tax”, pointing out that Fletcher actually voting in favour of it – see RNZ’s Phil Goff fires back: Dumping ‘Goff’s gas tax’ would create $4.3b revenue gap, Auckland mayor says.

Goff adds: “Before anybody criticises a form of revenue, they’ve got to say how they’d fill the revenue gap of $4.3 billion if they were to do away with it, and if you don’t do that there’s a real question of credibility.”

Tamihere’s past 

Tamihere’s possibility of success might hinge on whether Auckland voters care about his past controversies – which are very well covered in Scott Palmer’s John Tamihere’s most controversial moments.

Will people hold past misdemeanours against him? As Grant Duncan of Massey University comments, “Possibly people are prepared to put that in the past. But people I’m sure will start to drag up some of those old stories as the campaign goes forward” – see Newshub’s ‘Old stories’ may derail John Tamihere’s mayoralty bid – expert.

Duncan also says: “One thing you can’t accuse Mr Tamihere of is political correctness. He is entertaining and an outspoken person, and it will be interesting to see how he gets along with Christine Fletcher.”

Todd Niall has also dealt with this, reporting from the Tamihere/Fletcher announcement: “His running-mate Christine Fletcher said at their campaign launch that Tamihere had ‘matured and moved on’ since the episode in which he’d described women as ‘frontbums’. Tamihere’s demeanour went steely when his past was raised, obliquely asking in return whether anyone had not learned from mistakes.”

Tamihere was also interviewed this morning on RNZ’s Morning Report, and responded to a question about his past controversies, saying “Here’s the thing, my name is JT not JC. I’m not totally in control of the whole shooting match all the time, I make mistakes. I’ve indicated I own them, what do you want me to do – jump off the Harbour Bridge?” – see: Tamihere bids for Auckland mayoralty: ‘My name’s JT, not JC’.

It’s possible that raising these controversies might even work in Tamihere’s favour. As with the 2016 attacks on Donald Trump – especially by Hillary Clinton and her supporters – sometimes this can actually play into the hands of those under fire. Martyn Bradbury has put the case for this: “I think a woke attack by Goff could be terribly counter productive. Many Aucklanders stuck in traffic every day are furious at smug pronouncements from woke activists on cycling, and if the attack against Tamihere are seen as coming from that part of the political spectrum, Tamihere could throw caution to wind, assume he has nothing to lose… and come out with some populist attack on cycle lanes and reap the vast angry chunk of Auckland’s gridlocked voter block.”

Finally, for the most in-depth and recent examination of Tamihere’s past and present orientation to various controversies, as well as how he plans to take Auckland forward, see Simon Wilson’s John Tamihere on Roast Busters, front bums and running for Auckland mayoralty.