Luxon Treaty compromise criticized by outgoing National MP Vanessa Weenink, Digi Mart USA News (New Zealand): Outgoing National MP Vanessa Weenink says the compromise party leader Christopher Luxon made on Treaty issues to his coalition partners cost the National Party and hurt the country. Speaking to RNZ, she said some of the rhetoric and discussion around the Māori language and the Treaty were “some of the most damaging things” that happened in the last term.
“And frankly, that is not the National Party. That is our coalition partners, and particularly ACT, and I’ve had a guts full of it,” Weenink said, adding she was relieved to no longer be part of the coalition.
She lost the Banks Peninsula seat to Labour’s Tracey McLellan this election by slightly more than two thousand votes, while the party vote went to Labour, with National not far behind.
Speaking to RNZ’s Midday Report, Weenink said voters had told her the National Party “wasn’t like this” and that its coalition partners had “pulled us too far to the right.” She said people believed National was doing things that were not in line with its values, and that she had chosen the party because its values were most in line with her own, particularly on the Treaty.
Weenink said the ability to understand and pronounce Māori words would be a huge advantage in any career in New Zealand, and that the Treaty was one of the key issues she expected would require “a lot of deep reflection.” She described how difficult it was to learn that Luxon had conceded on the Treaty Principles Bill.
“That was a compromise position that the Prime Minister chose to make and I respect him for the decisions that he has to make and having to make those tough calls is what leadership is about, but my God it cost us and my God it hurt us as a country.” She added, “I don’t know if the National Party will be truly forgiven for that, and I think we’ve got to spend the next term and probably the next 10 terms making up for that, because quite frankly, it’s hurt.”
Weenink acknowledged she was not part of the coalition negotiations, so it would be unfair to judge whether Luxon gave too much away or whether ACT and New Zealand First were too strong for National to hold onto its values. “None of us know the difficulties of having to make that decision.
Whether he would make the same decision again with the benefit of hindsight, that’s a different point, but it doesn’t change the situation that he faced and they faced at the time.”
Despite this, Weenink said Luxon had managed to keep the coalition together last term. “He pulled off a minor miracle in that and I think the opposition last time was quite disappointed about the fact that we managed to make it through a full three-year term.”
Weenink referenced the infantry motto “onward,” acknowledging another battle was coming and “we just have to keep going.” She said the National Party was the biggest party in Parliament for a reason, “because we have the best people,” but that it was losing some of its greatest people from Parliament, including senior National MPs who were leaving.
Weenink also described the harassment she has faced as a politician, saying she receives constant hate on social media, people have yelled at her from car windows, her tyres have been drilled twice, her car has been egged, and her house has been protested outside by Palestinian supporters. She acknowledged these experiences were partly due to being a politician, and specifically a female politician in the mid-2020s, and said they were “tied together” with what she described as voters saying they hated the National Party.
