When Pita Sharples went to Hawke’s Bay’s prestigious Te Aute College he was a back-country kid out of his depth. While he peeled vegetables in the school’s kitchens, a senior student, one of the big, star rugby players, mocked him. “What are you doing haka for? You can’t even speak the language.”
Sharples was ashamed, but determined to show the rugby star he could speak Maori better than him. Sharples became head boy, later founding the Kura Kaupapa movement, immersing a new generation in te reo. He has long been regarded as one of the country’s leading haka performers.
When he left the Bay and moved to Auckland for university a few years later, he was again a small fish diving into a deep pond. He didn’t know how to get food in the dining hall or talk to girls. As a 20-year-old, he stood at intersections watching the crossing lights time and again trying to figure out when to cross.
“That was so traumatic. I couldn’t believe it. It was the sheer size of everything, the culture clash.”
But he survived and prospered, ending up with a first-class masters and a PhD in anthropology.
Now, aged 63, Sharples has moved from his community work at Wai-takere’s Hoani Waititi marae to co-lead the fledging Maori Party. Once again, he has leapt into unknown waters, standing for the Tamaki Makaurau seat that covers central, south and most of west Auckland. Given his past success thriving on new challenges, the more experienced political operators that he’s taking on in this year’s election should be wary of seeing his naivety as a weakness. Although initially reluctant to stand for Parliament, he’s now “full-bore into it” and as determined to represent Maori in Parliament as he was to learn Maori and earn his degrees. And his is a fearsome dedication.
“What I really like doing is working with the people creating possibilities. I never, ever thought about Parliament. I thought, nah, show me one thing they’ve done that’s been useful to our people.
“Even at the beginning of last year, no interest whatsoever. It came as a response to what happened over the foreshore. The foreshore was like the straw on the camel’s back for me. It was like, damn it, I’ve been through this scenario time after time, year after year. This is the last straw.”
His childhood certainly didn’t suggest a parliamentary career. He spent his early summers sleeping in shearing sheds as his Pakeha father and Maori mother followed the work. “It was a very gypsy time and the shearers drank and sang songs most nights.”
Winters were spent in Takapau, central Hawke’s Bay, in a house with no electricity or running water. Sharples slept on the verandah, on a pile of coats.
Two generations on, he looks around and sees too many Maori suffering the same hardships. It angers him. And, like any good kapa haka leader, Sharples knows how to channel his anger.
He has chosen the Maori Party as his conduit. But why this party, and why now?
“This is the last chance, politically,” he says. The feeling among Maori is “that something drastic has to be done, otherwise we don’t exist.
“When your Prime Minister says that she’d rather meet a sheep than you, when your Prime Minister won’t come and meet you after you’ve come down the whole motu [island], and calls you names like haters, you realise you just don’t count. Where is the tangata whenua status?
“We believe that we have things in our culture that are good for New Zealand. That’s why we’re trying to stay Maori. We’re not staying Maori to look after some fossil. We’re not staying Maori to stay the poor class. We’re saying, perhaps we have some things in our culture that are good for New Zealand, therefore we need to live as Maori.”
Sharples’s promise is to represent, and be led by, all Maori. “If your people tell you to do something, you do it. Finish. Or sign off. You can’t represent your people, then turn your back on them.”
With the exception of his now co-leader Tariana Turia and Nanaia Mahuta, who crossed the floor, that’s exactly what he thinks Labour’s Maori MPs did over the foreshore. He’s confident that they’ll pay for it with their seats.
In Sharples’s sights is his old mate Tamaki Makaurau MP John Tamihere. Without a place on Labour’s list, Tamihere is out of Parliament if he loses his seat.
The recent Marae-DigiPoll showing the Maori Party ahead in five of the seven Maori seats suggested an upset in Tamaki Makaurau. Sharples led on 66 percent support with Tamihere trailing on 30 percent. But because the poll sample for each electorate was only around 100 voters, some have questioned its reliability. Sharples does the same, but not for the reason you might expect.
“We were expecting higher,” he says, before adding in hushed tones, “I’m getting 75 percent.”
Sharples’s team has door-knocked two-thirds of the electorate. “It’s 75 percent for me. But we’re not complacent. We’ve got to finish. I went to Parnell and I was lucky if I got a single yes. [They said,] ‘Sharples, good chap that, but, nah, we’re staying with the status quo. Mind the marble steps on your way out.’”
He chuckles and shakes his head.
“There’s some rich Maori there.”
Labour, of course, says that’s exactly why Maori should stick with them. Maori prosperity is growing significantly, thanks to a sharply falling Maori unemployment rate and a strong economy. Suggest that to Sharples, however, and his eyes flash like taiaha. He talks about poverty, about Labour abandoning the wananga and kura kaupapa, and – above all else – about the foreshore.
“We’ve been around to the doors and we’ve talked to people. We thought the bruising over the foreshore was a big bruising, and we knew. And we were counting on it. That’s why I stood. I’ve got to help these Maori who are hurting over this last, ultimate snub by the government.”
Tamihere? “Yeah, we’re mates. Well, sort of mates. John would kick me if he could, I suppose.”
The kicking goes both ways. Asked why Tamaki Makaurau voters wouldn’t split their votes – their electorate vote for Tamihere, given that he’s not on the list and their party vote for the Maori Party, given Sharples will be at number one or two – Sharples replies baldly:
“That won’t wash. People don’t like John … They don’t understand that. They vote for the man or woman, finish. That’s why it’s uphill for John, because at the moment I’m the person.”
Isn’t it patronising to suggest Maori voters don’t understand tactical voting?
“No, no, you’re wrong,” Sharples continues. “They are smart because they want to go with the horse they can trust. You have no idea how hurt they are. They are so hurt. Damn it, John led the charge [on the foreshore]. He was the government’s man. Our elders were saying, ‘Oh, I understand, John’s explained it.’ And it turned out he’s hoodwinked them.”
Watch Tamihere on TV and it’s clear, Sharples says, “he’s the Pakeha’s man”.
As strong as Sharples’s words are, it’s a long way to go until polling day and the New Zealand Herald reports suggest that Labour is willing to spend at least $150,000 on the Maori seats.
Sharples says the Maori Party has “a few thousand … but you hire a hall and you spend it”. He’s relying on organisation – crucial if the party is to mobilise the largely young Maori vote. And he’s relying on dedication. Just as he always has.