Prime Minister on Meka Whaitiri's surprise departure: 'It's over to her'

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says he still has not heard from former Labour minister Meka Whaitiri who defected to Te Pāti Māori last week.

Whaitiri will sit in the House on Tuesday for the first time since her shock announcement.

In her first major interview since defecting to Te Pāti Māori last week, Whaitiri told 1News it was her calling and she felt it deep within her puku.

Māori people would understand that, she said.

Whaitiri said she made the decision to defect to Te Pāti Māori with her trusted sources, her family.

Hipkins said Whaitiri has said more to the media than to her former colleagues.

She had not returned his calls, he said, but it would be redundant to do so now because she had already defected.

"She's sharing more information publicly than she has with me."

It was up to Whaitiri to explain the reasons for her decision, he said.

"Ultimately it's Meka's decision it's really a personal decision by her, it's really for her to explain that. She's made her decision, she's announced it, so it's over to her."

Rather than focusing on Whaitiri's defection, the government needed to focus on supporting the people of Tairāwhiti and Hawke's Bay regions through the cyclone recovery, as well as the upcoming Budget, he said.

"Really I'm focused on moving on, there's many many other more pressing issues that we have to deal with."

It would be up to the Māori caucus if they wanted to meet with Whaitiri, Hipkins said.

"I've had several conversations with members of the Māori caucus and I've made it clear to them that it's up to them how they want to approach it going forward.

"They worked with Meka for a long period of time, if they want to clear the air with her now that she has left that's entirely up to them."

Newsroom is reporting that Whaitiri will make a personal statement in the House today but that could be blocked by any member.

But Hipkins said usually when members wanted to make a statement in the House they would approach other parties and ask them about that but Whaitiri had not approached him to indicate that was her intention.

"I'm not going to comment on a hypothetical, there's a process that people follow when they want to do that, as far as I know she hasn't done that yet."

Hipkins reiterated that he had had a good working relationship with both the Green Party which also lost an MP recently and Te Pāti Māori.

"We'll go into the election campaign, we'll be competing for votes of course and we'll make it clear which parties we think we can work with after the election, you know ultimately it's up to the voters to make those decisions."

Labour had not yet made the decision about which parties they would be prepared to work with in a coalition government but would set that out in due course, Hipkins said.

Up to RNZ what it releases on Kiri Allan comments, PM says

On Monday, RNZ released two comments made by Cabinet Minister Kiritapu Allan at the farewell for her partner Māni Dunlop but withheld the rest, citing privacy.

The broadcaster said there was a public interest in the two comments "about RNZ, a public institution, and which do not affect the privacy of any other person", which were the basis for media reports and prompted a public apology from Allan.

Hipkins said he believed he had seen the full transcript.

"If I recall it correctly most of it was her speaking about her partner and there were a couple of sentences, or a couple of paragraphs in there that were ill-advised. The rest of it, from my recollection of it, was actually pretty benign.

"Ultimately the decision around what gets released and what doesn't get released is not one for me, that's one for Radio New Zealand."

At the time Hipkins said that it would have been better if Allan had not made the comments and she apologised at the time.

"I certainly don't believe it's something someone should lose their job over, I think the comments themselves were ill-advised and I would have preferred had she not made them.

"It's always tricky territory for MPs and ministers when they're dealing with issues related to their families, you know they're still entitled to be supportive of members of their family, in this particular case I think it would have been better if she hadn't made those comments."

Defence Force spending increase designed to stop personnel going to private sector

After Monday's weekly Cabinet meeting, Hipkins and Defence Minister Andrew Little announced the government's Budget this year would boost New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) pay rates by $4000 to $15,000, at a cost of $419 million over four years.

A further $328m will also be spent on upgrading NZDF assets and infrastructure.

Hipkins said the large spending increase provided money for Defence Force personnel so the country did not continue to lose them to the private sector.

The New Zealand Defence Force's role is in areas like disaster relief recovery, search and surveillance and from a military perspective in supporting just causes around the world, he said.

"I think the money that we've announced is going largely into making sure that the people who are doing that hard work actually get treated fairly."

Former defence minister Wayne Mapp also said the increase was long overdue with an attrition rate of 30 percent over the last two years which was totally unsustainable.

"So yes it's necessary and essential just to sort of maintain a base."

The increase was overdue and Defence Force staff's secondment to MIQ duties during the pandemic added to the staffing problem, Mapp said.

"Being essentially a passive security officer is not what people join Defence for, so that definitely harmed Defence and I think that was recognised."

A defence review due out next year would be the real test of whether the government had improved its approach towards defence, he said.