Edwards on a shabby defection

Bryce Edwards writes:

In announcing her departure from the Labour Government on Wednesday, Meka Whaitiri failed to point to any substantive policy and philosophical differences with the party she had represented in Parliament for nearly 10 years. Likewise, yesterday Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was unable to point to any particular reason for Whaitiri’s resignation and insisted Whaitiri had no “beef” with Labour.

Without Whaitiri being willing to provide any justification for her departure from Labour, speculation can be fairly drawn that it is simply about her own personal ambitions, gripes and vanities. In particular, Whaitiri’s switch to Te Pāti Māori appears to be about her thwarted career ambitions. She was sacked by Jacinda Ardern in 2018 after a nasty altercation with one of her staff. 

Whaitiri never seemed to accept any fault in the dispute, displaying a lack of contrition and unwillingness to explain what happened. Her most notable statement following the dispute was that “In this country, we have a hierarchy; white men, white women, brown men, brown women, and sometimes brown women have to talk extra loud to be heard”.

Whaitiri was disgruntled when she did not make it back into Cabinet after the controversy, and even considered jumping ship to Te Pāti Māori in 2020. Subsequent reshuffles – especially the most recent ones under new prime minister Chris Hipkins – appear to have been the tipping point for Whaitiri, as she is said to have been aggrieved that other younger Māori MPs were promoted over her. It also looked likely that Whaitiri would lose her ministerial position outside of Cabinet after the next election.

If Labour is re-elected, the party will have less share of the vote and will have to divvy up ministerial positions with MPs from other minor parties, possibly including Te Pāti Māori. Other rising stars in Labour would also be likely to make up a refreshed Executive.

So, although Whaitiri has given up a ministerial position – and some have painted this as courageous – this was a case of her reading the writing on the wall. With this move, Whaitiri is now in a position to come back after the election as a more significant political figure, potentially even as a Cabinet Minister representing Te Pāti Māori.

This is spot on. The defection is about personal ambition, not principle.

The proportionality of Parliament has been distorted – something that the Labour Government previously stated as a reason for bringing in the waka jumping law, which Whaitiri has been able to step around. It is clear that both Te Pāti Māori and Labour have done everything they can to prevent Whaitiri from being ejected from Parliament under the waka jumping law. Labour wants to avoid souring their relationship with Te Pāti Māori because its path back to power after the election is likely to be predicated on that party’s support.

Labour has obviously calculated that to invoke the waka-jumping legislation – which they have every right and ability to do – would not be in their interests, even if it would be the principled thing to do. It also appears that Labour and its Speaker have bent over backwards to prevent Whaitiri from inadvertently triggering the legislation.

The wake jumping law is a bad law – but it is a bad law that Labour and Whaitiri voted for. They should either implement the law, or repeal it.