The Labour Party has lost a minister, as Meka Whaitiri announced on Wednesday she would join the Māori Party and recontest her seat on the East Coast in the October general election.
It remains unclear whether she will be able to remain in Parliament or if her resignation has triggered a law which would automatically vacate her seat.
Whaitiri was the member of Parliament for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and the Minister of Customs, Food Safety, and Veterans — outside of Cabinet.
The MP was passed over for a seat at the Cabinet table when Prime Minister Chris Hipkins chose Willow Jean Prime, a lower ranked member, to fill the space vacated by Stuart Nash last month.
Whaitiri said she notified the Speaker on Wednesday morning that she had resigned from the Labour Party and was joining Te Pāti Māori, with little further explanation.
Doing so may automatically trigger a law known as the “waka jumping legislation” which forces an MP to vacate their seat if they leave the political party they were elected with.
However, acting-Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni said the Labour Party would not take any action to remove Whaitiri from Parliament.
It was now up to the member and the Speaker of the House to determine whether the waka jumping legislation had been invoked.
As the general election is less than six months away, a by-election can be skipped if 75% of Parliament agree to do so. Whaitiri has held Ikaroa-Rāwhiti for Labour since 2013 and would stand a good chance to win the seat again.
John Tamihere, president of the Māori Party, said there was no “catalyst” causing Whaitiri’s resignation, rather she was “coming home to her whakapapa”.
The party is very unlikely to form a coalition with the National and Act parties, and so Whaitiri could find herself back in government with Labour if a left-leaning coalition was elected.
Kieran McAnulty will take over as Acting Hawke's Bay Lead Minister for Cyclone Recovery and her other portfolios have been reassigned on a temporary basis.
“They and the people of Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti who are recovering and rebuilding from the damage of Cyclone Gabrielle remain our strong focus as we continue to support Kiwis through globally turbulent times,” Sepuloni said
30 Comments
So PM Hipkins is set to go to the electorate with a faction in his own party out of control, breaking ranks and jumping ship, with the added enticement of the Greens backstabbing and spitting out vitriol and the TPM that is welcoming all of that with bells on? If PM Hipkins had any sense of integrity, the good of the nation, he would neither countenance nor offer such a shambolic prospect as a government.
Heaven forbid. Suspect TOP will have very little influence unless the pre-conditions are made public and TOP do not form a coalition because pre-conditions are not met. Not like Winston First who does not reveal his hand before at all.. This can be a good negotiating tactic but with Winston its only what he can get out of the deal for himself with a few other sops. Raf Manji may be salivating in this position and also not reveal his negotiating tactics either.
We've ended up with the most predictable outcome - that despite the bragging about having resigned as a member of the Labour Party, she's now apparently done no such thing - apparently not to the extent that it would trigger the Waka Jumping rules to kick her out of parliament.
How convenient. For the sake of electoral transparency, this needs to be made public immediately. Either she had a big stand-up and lied about her status as an MP, or she has done what she said she did and the Waka Jumping rules apply. If they don't the public needs to know why. You cannot be both an independent MP and a Labour MP at once.
You're sounding surprised ? Meka has long form on being economical with the truth Official report into Meka Whaitiri incident released | RNZ News
Wasn't she the same MP that beat up a staff member? The one that the head muppet of the time refused to sack for same?
I smell a huge rat here. I think despite the bluster this was all pre-orchestrated. Labour are desperate to get back in at the election. By bolstering the chances of TPM gaining another seat it will make it easier for Labour to form a three way coalition if the vote is tight. Now that Labour have refused to kick her out of parliament and she didn't give the speaker a signed letter of resignation just reinforces my theory.
As much as I hate to admit this, National and Act may need Winnie!
I'm oblivious of the following:-
"She's now been removed as a minister but appears to have hung onto her job as an MP by a technicality"
What is the technicality?
""I have officially notified the Speaker that I have resigned from the New Zealand Labour Party and have joined Te Pāti Māori effective immediately," Whaitiri said"
So what? Is this just a formality with no further implications.
Furthermore, related to the technicality?
"The Labour Party had an option to kick Whaitiri out of Parliament.
Sepuloni said Labour wouldn't waka-jump Whaitiri out of Parliament.
"We don't feel the need to invoke that.""
Something smells here, I just don't know what
Doesn't matter, it's the law and she voted for it. And if she has resigned as a Labour MP then she is gone. It's that simple. It's not something Labour gets to decide to enforce. If they don't like it then maybe they shouldn't have proposed it and maybe she shouldn't have voted for it. As soon as she sent it, it got triggered.
This stinks. All correspondence between Labour, Whaitiri and the Speaker needs to be released into the public immediately. The integrity of parliament itself is now in question, this is no longer a simple party-hopping issue.
There is a simple solution to stop the crazy Te Pati Maori gaining any coalition control...
Both Chris's just have to say... "We wil not do any deals with TPM"... but we know that they both have no moral fotitude and thus NZ will become a racially divided back water.
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