Tama Potaka frustrates me. Somewhere beneath that Tory suit bears the heart of a genuine human being, I feel it in my bones. But I really have to dig through his discourse to hear snatches of it.
I can almost hear its rhythm in the first half of this conversation with Mihi Forbes, which starts out with a flyover of the political and cultural landscape of Aotearoa in 2026, and how it's affecting iwi Māori.
(1/?)
But then comes the second half of the interview, when Mihi gets into the Nats' approach to settling Waitangi claims, and the deep culture of racism in their coalition partners. The beating of Potaka's heart gets fainter, obscured by the hiss of unconvincing talking points. CLuxon's tongue slides into his mouth to parrot pat phrases like; "we signed a coalition deal to form a government", answering every question but the one Mihi asks.
(2/?)
Then Mihi turns to Potaka's housing portfolio, and the sound of his heart vanishes altogether. Lost in the roar of so many evasive maneuvers it would leave a Star Trek helmsman doing a slow clap;
* definition lawyering: how do you define homelessness?
* tu quoque: we're not running a police states that monitor where every person goes after they leave social housing
* blame shifting: we've outsourced our job to community groups, and they're responsible for reducing homelessness, not us
(3/?)
I've said here before that I think Tama Potaka could make a principled Nat leader. Despite my comments here, I stand by that.
But he needs to shake off CLuxon and his handlers, and drag the Nats back towards the legacy of Doug Graham, Georgina te Heuheu and Chris Finlayson, and hardworking backbenchers like Harete Hipango. Pulling together a coalition of principled conservatives, who *wouldn't* make cynical coalition deals with carpetbaggers and Useful Idiots working for technofascists.
(4/4)
Strypey