Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Tākuta Ferris standing by controversial social media post

Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris is standing by his controversial social media comments, according to recent reports.

Ferris posted a video this week defending a previous post saying it was unacceptable for people of other ethnicities to campaign to take a Māori seat from Māori.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan says this has caused some tension within the party, as some fellow MPs have raised concerns about these comments.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Time to talk politics now and I'm joined by New
Zealand Here and political editor Thomas Coggan. Good morning, Thomas,
Good morning. Write a bit going on with Party Marty.
This week took us through it.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, an interesting week for to Party Marty. Obviously last weekend,
this time last weekend, we would have been talking about
the fact that their candidate, already Kaipitter had absolutely host
home and the Tamakimcoto by election. So you know, it
would have been a pretty pretty great week. It should
have been a pretty great week for Party Marty, but
that swiftly turned into something else with this ongoing controversy

(00:43):
over MP Taku Deferras's comments on social media. You will
recall he posted to Instagram during the by election about
ampaign for mainstream parties and Malory seats, a post that
was widely condemned as racist, and he sort of doubled
down on it throughout the week on social media. Interestingly,

(01:04):
the co leaders of the party have tom to take
this post down. They have a sort of distancing themselves
from what he's posting on social media, so that there
does appear to be something of a risk opening up
within the party. It's not quite clear what's going on
to party. Mary is a bit of a black box
sometimes when it comes to their internal politics, but certainly

(01:24):
from what we've seen from the outside that there appears
to be a wee bit of tension. Later in the week,
that was sort of confirmed with the quiet news, which
was not publicly announced. It was only revealed when when
media commoned onto it that co leader Debbie Nardi where
Packer had reshuffled herself into the whips position.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Alrighty ho, keep an eye on what happens next.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
What would be quite interesting. Yeah, there could be a
number of things could happen next, including some some perhaps
more open and more open disagreement.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Karl Bates has been in the media this week. Of course,
the FANG and MP under fire are not declaring twenty
five properties here and his families are linked to it.
But then there's been sort of slightly embarrassing Facebook issue
as well, where it looks like he's kind of praised
himself for doing all the right things.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yes, so this is quite a complicated issue in terms
of what you're obliged to declare. Obviously, the MP's have
to declare their their financial interests because you don't want
you want you want all that to be transparent. MP's
are obviously making quite important decisions about the regulatory environment,
so you want to make sure that they are publicly
declaring everything that they're connected to. And there is some
complexity around what trusts and properties held in trusts. So

(02:38):
he is linked to the twenty five properties are owned
to trust that his family is linked to. He said
that the part of that parliament, the Parliament's Register of
Registrar of Pecuniary Interests okayed his declaration. So hasn't broken
any any declaration rules, let's be clear about that. But
obviously it does expose a sort of challenge in the

(03:00):
rules when when when this sort of ownership structure allows
you to turn to not to clear these houses? Yes,
and then there was the rather embarrassing incident later in
the week where it appears where where where Carl's social
media account published a post praising him. What appears to
have happened there is that one of one of Carl's
team and and there's office perhaps made the post thinking

(03:24):
that they were making it from their own personal accounts,
when actually it was it was the it was the account.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Very very easy to do, Thomas, Hey, look very easy
to do, very easy to do Thomas really quickly. In
the next few weeks, Labor is going to finally unveil
its tax policy for the election. Do we know when
this will be?

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Uh is in the next few weeks. It will either
be later very late this month, I suppose, or perhaps
early early next month, but that could change. They actually
haven't agreed the text policy yet, so if it does,
you know, there is a chance that that that disagreement
you know, goes on and they won't they won't get
a position to an ounce, but at the moment, within

(04:03):
the next few weeks.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
For more from this Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.