The cycling Iti

Stuff reports:

The master of Maori protest used pedal power to conquer 200 kilometres of the country’s highway from Bay of Plenty to Waikato in an effort to whip up support for the Maori Party.

Maori Party List candidate and Tuhoe champion Tame Iti, 62, cranked through the second leg of a three-day road relay from Ruatoki in Bay of Plenty to Auckland.

That took him from Rotorua, where he used his Te Arawa connections to raise votes for leader Te Ururoa Flavell, to Garden Place in Hamilton’s CBD. …

Flavell climbed in the polls this week and Cullen was working hard to garner votes in Waikato but Iti’s face and profile was a priceless commodity. “My face will shift a lot of people. They will see Tame and say, oh, Maori Party.”

He spent the night at Kirikiriroa Marae in Dey St and will continue to Auckland today to support Tamaki Makaurau candidate Rangi McClean.

He said the Maori Party was at the table with government and were making a difference for their communities.

“We need to be at the bench and making those decisions and the Maori Party have been since they have been part of the system.”

Iti for so long has the the face of violent protest in NZ. He shot the NZ flag with a shotgun. He was running around the bush with some idiots pretending they were a rebel army.

I’ve said this before, but to have him now extolling the virtues of working within the system is a great thing.