Today’s R\u0101tana festivities will mark a major changing of the guard for Labour and a potential change in the party’s relationship with M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
Jacinda Ardern will deliver her final speech as prime minister this afternoon at R\u0101tana P\u0101 – near Whanganui – at its annual commemorations.<\/p>\n
Incoming Labour leader Chris Hipkins will then follow. National leader Christopher Luxon will also attend the event this morning for the first time.<\/p>\n
The annual political pilgrimage traditionally marks the beginning of the political year though Ardern’s announcement last week saw that superseded.<\/p>\n
The event will serve as a de facto farewell for Ardern and a test of both Hipkins and Luxon’s connection with M\u0101oridom.<\/p>\n
Former Labour chief of staff Matt McCarten, of Ng\u0101puhi descent, told RNZ he expected it would be a “very emotional” day for both Ardern and mana whenua.<\/p>\n
“Jacinda’s had a very strong relationship with M\u0101ori… [her departure] is a huge loss for M\u0101oridom because she was an ally in public, but also in the backrooms.”<\/p>\n
McCarten, who worked under David Cunliffe and Andrew Little, said Hipkins would have a different approach and focus to Ardern’s.<\/p>\n
“Chris is a campaigner, he’s a strategist, and he’s got to put through a leadership team and a policy platform which is going to win the next election.”<\/p>\n
McCarten said, as such, he predicted Hipkins would ask some hard questions about certain policies advocated by the M\u0101ori caucus and put some on ice.<\/p>\n
“You can’t fight on too many fronts… he’s going to have to say to the M\u0101ori caucus: is this going to help us get elected or is it not? He’s going to take a very practical position.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, things like co-governance, most P\u0101keh\u0101 and M\u0101ori don’t even know what it means, but they feel uncomfortable with it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SOURCE -RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today’s R\u0101tana festivities will mark a major changing of the guard for Labour and a potential change in the party’s relationship with M\u0101ori. Jacinda Ardern will deliver her final speech as prime minister this afternoon at R\u0101tana P\u0101 – near Whanganui – at its annual commemorations. Incoming Labour leader Chris Hipkins will then follow. National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2455,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453\/revisions\/2455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}