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Billy Te Kahika has announced he will stand as a candidate for the NZ Public Party in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate.
The co-leader of the newly merged Advance NZ Party, the result of a merger between Te Kahika's NZ Public Party and former National MP Jami-Lee Ross' new Advance NZ party, announced the news in a media release Sunday afternoon.
“I will stand for the NZ Public Party as the candidate in Te Tai Tokerau," Te Kahika said.
“As the MP for Te Tai Tokerau I will ensure we deliver more jobs for our people, more economic hope and opportunity, and more housing – but housing projects that will enable more Māori ownership. Not just simple social housing that equates to continual offering of a road to nowhere and in a slum, low socio-economic environment.
“These are the fundamental necessities of life that we are losing around here, with Māori living in cars and even in tree huts, which underlines we have a government under Labour that continues to fail us."
Te Kahika, who has whakapapa ties to Te Tai Tokerau, says Labour and electorate MP Kelvin Davis have failed to deliver for the people of the area.
“Our people deserve better, and Labour has taken support in the Tai Tokerau for granted every time it is in government and it has failed to deliver anything for our people," Te Kahika says.
"Our people are just as poor, just as jobless, just as homeless as they were before and all I see when I examine Labour’s and his performance is they have done literally nothing."
Te Kahika was interviewed earlier this month on Te Ao with Moana.