I fail to see the point of The Māori Party modifying their Whānau Build policy if their leader is going to target immigrants as their FIRST response to housing questions.

And while self-interest should NOT be the basis of our policies, many of our own are still promoting this idea of immigration bans being pro-Māori, so I wanna talk about why they're NOT pro-Māori.

1. Immigration policy is a 2 way street. How we treat immigrants impacts how NZers are treated overseas. There are something in the range of 120k Māori living overseas & hundreds of Māori defence force personnel stationed overseas whose security depend on these arrangements

2. NZs racism means that talking about migrants is interpreted by the majority as talking about racialised groups. Asian, African, Pacific communities get the blame. This reinforces a system of racial heirarchy that is inherently colonial & under which Māori cannot prosper.

3. Many Māori DO have migrant spouses, children, siblings, parents, Nannies and Papas who wind up being targetted by the xenophobic attitudes that are encouraged by anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.

4. Many immigrant communities are, in my Treaty training experience, wonderful and powerful supporters of tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake. They understand colonial injustice much more readily than many of our own countrymen/women.

5. Extending from reason 4: If the govt calls a referendum for constitutional reform, then xenophobic policies and attitudes from Māori instantly makes Māori governance a very scary space for voting migrant communities. Their support matters in our mana motuhake journey.

6. It makes us look dumb. It's not evidence based, in fact it contradicts evidence provided by our own Māori experts. Pandering to populist notions in a white supremacist society is dangerous, reckless and fails to model the greatest potential of Māori leadership.

The strongest card the Māori Party have against other parties is that they won't get voted down by a non-Māori party caucus. The inference is that this ensures protection of Māori interests. Xenophobic policy is not in Māori interests.

And if the policies don't work in the interests of Māori in the first place, then having a completely Māori party caucus loses relevance, even by their own standards.