Will an almost $1 billion slice of the 2020 Budget for Māori lead to the Labour Party retaining all seven Māori electorates?
Political commentator Shane Te Pou says with the Labour-led Government delivering $900 million in spending towards kaupapa Māori, the party will once again complete a clean sweep in the Māori electorates at this year's election.
"Overall this Government will be judged quite well."
Māori Council chair Matthew Tukaki says Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer is gaining recognition for her work during the COVID-19 lockdown.
"Is that the resurgence of the Māori party? - it needs more than Deb at the helm to get them back into Parliament, but she could possibly win."
Tukaki says the Budget announcement is pretty good for jobs and employment for Māori. He adds another $1 billion of the Budget spend will also directly contribute to the Māori economy.
"This next period needs to be not just putting our people back to work - we can't escape the problem that we do have a [high] unemployment rate."
Te Pou says he is disappointed there is not more immediate help for people on welfare, although he is looking forward to the infrastructure projects promised by the Budget.
"To date the real successful ones have been the ones partnering up with iwi and I want to see a continuation of that."
The investment in trades training for Māori, Te Pou says is another win - and he'd like to see the Māori trade training program relaunched.
"Sometimes we do need to go back to our past to determine our future."
The Hui
