Mike's Minute: Te Pāti Māori allegations are too serious to not investigate

Shall we open the week with a prediction?  This is the week the Government will call an inquiry into the accusations around the Māori Party, the marae and the use of Covid and census information.  The trouble is if the Government doesn’t call an inquiry, too many questions start to get asked around transparency and trust.  The allegations are too specific. They are not hearsay from people who heard from people. They are very specific, detailed allegations from people who were there.  The denials are fine. But the questions remain un-investigated and they are too serious not to be.  Whether a Privacy Commissioner and Stats NZ hiring a bloke to do it is enough, but I doubt it from the Government's point of view.  Do remember, although this goes directly to one party in Parliament, it potentially involves everyone in Parliament.  If those running the country can't be seen to be scrupulous, then that’s trouble.  The Māori Party themselves haven't helped, with the president John Tamihere rolling out his standard line about this all being about race.  John is too angry to be credible these days. He has this enormous chip on his shoulder and everything is a conspiracy around race.  The irony here is that the people making the accusations are Māori. So it's not about Māori, it's about rules and laws and whether they have been broken.  Not helping is the food and voucher giveaway. Although Māori can argue this is koha, the previous Government set a damning precedent where bribes, because that’s what they are, were handed out for vaccines and Census participation and they muddied the waters.  But what is clear is using Census and vaccine information to campaign and/or recruit for elections is illegal and that is what we need to find out - did it happen, or not?  There is also the matter of said information then being used to contact people via text for votes and not following the prescribed electoral laws.  So does the Government pull the trigger? And when they do, why?  Does it pass the pub test?  Not even close.    LISTEN ABOVE. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.