It’s one of those lines oft-trotted out by parents, managers and trainers, but is no less true for its homespun nature. The line goes: “It’s not just what you do, but how you do it”.
What Meka Whaitiri did yesterday morning is significant enough. A sitting minister (outside of cabinet) leaving a party less than six months out from an election is a shocking move. The timing and the scale of the decision – let alone the political message it sends voters – is inherently dramatic.
"This morning, I have officially notified the Speaker that I have resigned from the Labour Party and am joining Te Pāti Māori," she said yesterday, in a statement that even her closest colleagues did not see coming.
But how it was done has only added to that drama and raises questions about Te Pati Maori’s previous commitment to “mana-enhancing” relationships. Relationships sour, priorities change and hard decisions are made. People can understand that what was right yesterday is not always right tomorrow. But we look to our leaders to handle these difficulties with a degree of respect – for each other, for the institutions they serve and, ultimately, for us as voters.
In this case it’s hard to see much respect in Whaitiri’s handling of her defection from Labour to Te Pati Maori. In her own announcement, Whaitiri said “I have spoken my truth”, pitching the decision as a deeply personal one. On Morning Report today, Te Pati Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said Whaitiri had spoken with whanau and had their backing. She added that there had been korero in the electorate and it was a “whanau decision”.
That framing, however, ignores the fact that serving as an MP is an inherently public role. A collective effort beyond the whanau and your own supporters.
From what little we know about the Ikaroa-Rawhiti’s MP’s decision, she did not talk to any colleagues in the party that had selected, promoted and campaigned for her through a by-election and three general elections. They were blindsided.
Whaitiri did not have the decency to speak to her boss, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Worse, she made the announcement when he was out of the country. Given Ngawera-Packer says she only learnt of the move in the past week, this does not seem to be a cowardly calculation. Yet given how recent the decision seems to have been, there seems no need to have rushed the move without making some phone calls. As of this morning, she still hasn’t picked up the phone to Hipkins.
In the midst of this, she and Te Pati Maori have talked about Whaitiri’s switch as an act of emancipation. That she was “shackled” in Labour. That is deeply loaded and insulting language. It suggests she felt pushed out rather than personally pulled to her new party by its tikanga.
Thinking about a minister earning at least $250,000 a year with the power and resources that role provides as a form of slavery will to some seem rather perverse, especially to those in her electorate who are suffering more directly as slaves to a global cost of living crisis, climate change and more.
Former Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples was the one who came up with the “mana-enhancing” tikanga in the party’s early days. It was how he described his party’s move into government alongside John Key’s National Party. Yet Sharples and co-leader Tariana Turia supported tax cuts it did not believe in and a 90-day probationary period for workers. Were they slaves?
Politics is the art of compromise. Collectives require a level of support at the cost of personal liberties. You can’t always get what you want. Put it however you like but having to accept some losses in any walk of life does not equate with being shackled.
But perhaps the biggest lack of respect thus far is to voters. After a carefully staged announcement she has not seen fit to explain herself to the public she serves. MPs are not just creatures of their electorates, but representatives of the people. And the people, quite frankly, have every right to feel kept in the dark. She is a servant of the public, yet we have so many unanswered questions.
What precisely has made her membership of the Labour Party untenable? Why not serve until this year’s election? Why this switch? Why now? Why in this way?
Perhaps at the top of this list is just what she intended to say in her letter to the Speaker. As she said in her speech, she has resigned from the Labour Party. Yet her letter is, seemingly, not as clear. Speaker Adrian Rurawhe says Whaitiri notified him she was withdrawing her vote from Labour and would sit elsewhere, but not that she had resigned from Labour. A resignation is required by law.
That law is the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act. Because it’s so often called the ‘waka-jumping’ legislation, perhaps we’ve forgotten that it is meant to protect the integrity of our body politic. It is meant to:
(a) enhance public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system; and
(b) enhance the maintenance of the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament as determined by electors.
Whaitiri’s move arguably undermines both. Either she is a member of the Labour Party or she is not. If she is not, she needs to say so to the Speaker and voters to enhance public confidence in the system. If she is not, the proportionality of party representation in parliament has been changed by her move.
This grey area she exists in at the moment is untenable under those stated goals of the law. The Speaker needs to release his correspondence with Whaitiri and Te Pati Maori and Whaitiri. These are essentially public matters, not private ones.
But more importantly we need to hear from Whaitiri. The obligation sits with her to clarify who she claims to represent and which party she owes her allegiance to. She needs to show respect to voters and the institution of parliament that as an MP she has sworn to serve, by cleaning up this constitutional cluster.
Whaitiri may have spoken her truth, but she has not done so clearly enough. This is not just about her or Te Pati Maori. It’s about respect for parliament and the people.