Rawiri Waititi claims no allegations against Māori organisations have been upheld. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi has accused the media of "relentlessly attacking" the party and Māori providers in a blistering speech at Parliament.
The address comes the day before Te Pāti Māori's promised "reset" ,which will co-incide with new Tāmaki Makaurau MP Oriini Kaipara's maiden speech.
Speaking during Parliament's general debate on Wednesday, Waititi said the government and media had engaged in a "constant attack" on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, pointing to "14 inquiries in the last 18 months into Māori organisations".
"Not a single allegation was upheld," Waititi said. "Innocence was maintained."
He claimed the media had failed to report those findings, asking: "Where are the headlines? Where are the apologies?"
"When the successful Māori kaupapa were cleared, the media went quiet," Waititi said. "That silence speaks volumes, because in this country, the presumption of guilt still has a whakapapa and it's brown."
Last week, police revealed they had found "insufficient evidence" to prove corruption at Manurewa Marae, after allegations private census data had been misused to help Te Pāti Māori's election campaign.
The Serious Fraud Office said a key obstacle to the investigation was the legal requirement to prove the direct involvement of a public official. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner continues its own review.
A separate inquiry by the Public Service Commission earlier concluded it was likely "on balance" that some photocopying of census data had occurred at Manurewa Marae.
The commission did not check whether that data had been misused, but found agencies failed to install adequate safeguards to protect personal information, prompting Stats NZ chief executive Mark Sowden to step down.
Manurewa Marae subsequently acknowledged it should have handled completed census forms better, but continued to reject claims it misused the information.
Waititi also cited an investigation into two former Whānau Ora commissioning agencies - Te Pou Matakana (TPM) and Pasifika Futures Limited (PFL).
The review found "no evidence" that Whānau Ora funds were misused and largely cleared the agencies of wrongdoing, but did not complete exonerate either of them.
For example, the reviewer did not believe TPM was entitled to invest Whānau Ora funds and then use profits for purposes outside its scope. Many "complex questions" were still outstanding in regards to PFL's management of funds.
In his speech on Wednesday, Waititi acknowledged the late Takutai Tarsh Kemp, the former chief executive of Manurewa marae-turned-Te Pāti Māori MP.
"I wish you were here still to see the outcome of the innocence upheld," he said. "We await the apologies you are due."
Waititi said the media treated Māori as "intruders in our own land", and were "deafening in our condemnation and silent in our innocence".
He rejected the "colonial gaze" that turned "Māori excellence into suspicion and Māori success into scandal".
"We will always be tried, convicted and executed before the truth is revealed, whilst the wealthy get to hide behind name suppression and privilege."
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