Te Pāti Māori's Takutai Kemp

Recently, the government has announced banning voting rights for all prisoners.

This changes previous legislation implemented by the former Labour government in 2020 - allowing prisoners serving a sentence less than three years the right to vote.

Previously, in 2015, the High Court ruled that a blanket approach to banning voting rights for prisoners goes against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

For our weekly catch up, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Te Pāti Māori’s Takutai Kemp about this move, and how the party is feeling about it.

They also discussed the party’s calls for significantly more funding for Whakaata Māori in Budget 2025, as well as Cabinet agreeing to recommendations to the ECE, or early childhood education, sector.

But first, they discussed the blanket ban on prisoners voting.

Three Te Pāti Māori MPs, Hana Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and Rawiri Waititi, did not attend the Privileges Committee over their contempt of the House, following their haka in Parliament protesting the Treaty Principles Bill.

The party instead are planning on holding their own hearing regarding the matter.

Privileges Committee chairwoman Judith Collins, called the no-show “unprecedented” and has given the MPs “one final chance” to attend the hearing.

For our weekly catch up, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Te Pāti Māori’s Takutai Kemp about the party’s action, and why they are going about the hearing in their own manner.

We also spoke about the repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act passing its final reading.

But first, we discussed the party not attending the Privileges Committee.

Recently, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Peters, met with his US counterpart; the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

Despite this meeting, not much is known about the details of what was discussed, however, the two did discuss tariffs, which Aotearoa may be affected by unless the country is exempt from the current upcoming agricultural tariffs.

For our weekly catchup with Te Pāti Māori’s Takutai Kemp, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to her about Peters and Rubio’s meeting, and what the party thinks of this meeting between the two politicians.

They also spoke about the most recent Ipsos Issues Monitor Survey and Israel’s recent aggression against Gaza.

The coalition government’s free school lunch programme has faced significant criticism from various groups and individuals. 

This follows the remodelling of the previous programme, the Ka Ora Ka Ako programme, to, in what ACT Party Leader David Seymour says, save taxpayers over $100 million and fix food wastage.

However, this current model has resulted lunches arriving significantly late, plastic having been found melted into food, and students describing the food as “bland,” and looking like “prison food”.

Responding to the criticisms facing the current model of the free school lunch programme, in an interview with Newstalk ZB, Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, says those complaining should “make a Marmite sandwich and put an apple in the bag.”

For our first weekly catch with Te Pāti Māori for the year, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Takutai Kemp about how she is viewing the lunch programme, and her opinions on Luxon’s recent remarks regarding the model.

We also spoke about the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill first reading in Parliament, and Te Pāti Māori being the only party not to support the Bill, and the changes to free bowel cancer screenings by changing the age from 60 to 58, which would result in scrapping the pilot programme that would have allowed Māori and Pacific people free screenings from age 50.

But first, they started off by asking her about how the party is feeling about the current state of the government’s free school lunch programme.