Judith Collins’ comments on Māori health policy are a diversion | Claire Robinson

National leader's warning about greater Mori self-governance are designed to deflect from her unpopularity

In October I wrote in praise of the Mori party's Mana Motuhake policy, a 25-year plan to improve Mori outcomes based on Mori asserting their right to exercise tino rangatiratanga - roughly translated as self-management, self-determination and self-governance - over all their domains. I predicted that whether the Mori party made it back into parliament in 2020 or not (it did), this call was only going to get louder.

After a speech last Saturday by the National party opposition leader, Judith Collins, this issue has been catapulted to the middle of the political agenda. Collins' speech drew attention to a report named He Puapua, written by an expert working group charged by the Labour-led coalition cabinet in 2019 to develop a plan and engagement process to realise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), which the John Key-led National coalition government signed up to in 2010.