I see the plan.

Labour is sweating the current Māori Party meltdown, so they have rolled out Willie Jackson, who claims Takuta Ferris is handing political extremists ammunition to paint the Māori Party as too weird to ever do business with Labour.

There are several problems with the plan.

Firstly, post the by-election Willie has no credibility.

Willie couldn’t win a raffle, far less a vote. And not only couldn’t he win the vote, he couldn’t get anyone out to even contemplate voting. What we saw a couple of weeks ago in Auckland was the biggest by-election shambles in many a long year.

The next problem is the Māori Party are too wacky to ever be in Government, Ferris or no Ferris. In citing Ferris as some sort of issue, you are forgetting Packer, Waititi, and Maipi-Clark, and all the others who found themselves in front of the Privileges Committee and sanctioned in a way we had not seen previously.

These are not people remotely interested in working with others.

In that is the real issue for Labour. It's not the Māori Party's problem.

If the Māori Party weren't attached to a centre-left bloc by polling, none of this Ferris nonsense would be of any interest to anyone.

But because mathematically they are needed in an invented deal for polling purposes, they take on a larger importance.

Without them Labour stand zero chance in the election next year.

To make the story interesting, the pollsters and the media have to align all three parties otherwise the narrative doesn’t work.

Then there's the other issue for Willie: the so-called "political extremists" he talks of. Another name for them is middle New Zealand, who saw what Labour, and Labour alone, did with Māoridom 2020-2023 with the obsession, the name changes, the new rules and courses and the compulsion around all things Māori. Talk about turning the punter off with obsession.

Between the Greens with their Palestine and wealth tax fascination and the Māori Party and their separatism, no wonder Labour are worried.

They have freaks for friends.

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Mike's Minute: Labour is watching the Māori Party closely

The Mike Hosking Breakfast