Internet Party leader Laila Harre is denying there is a rift between her and Mana leader Hone Harawira, but has described his language in a leaked email as 'unfortunate'.
Listen to Laila Harre
Hone Harawira and Laila Harre. Photo: RNZ / Internet Mana
In an expletive-laden email sent last week, Mr Harawira questioned the emphasis being placed on advertising for Internet Mana's policy on "weed", and the lack of focus on its Feed the Kids campaign.
Mana's key priority is to lift children out of poverty and feed children in decile 1 to 4 schools, and Mr Harawira is standing by his criticism of advertising of the cannabis policy.
Internet Leader Laila Harre told Morning Report she did not condone the way he went about expressing himself.
"Think that it's unfortunate when people use language like that within the organisation. But he was expressing himself strongly. "
But Ms Harre denied a rift had emerged between the two leaders.
"I absolutely deny that, we have not exchanged a cross word with each other since day one of this project" she said.
Ms Harre went on to say that she held the same view as Mr Harawira on the advertising proposal which had been put forward.
"The email was to the creative team. I think that it was expressed in a very unfortunate way. In fact I had myself replied before Hone in exactly the same view, but expressed in a rather different way. "
Ms Harre also said she was concerned about the fact that the email had been leaked to the media.
"Well, of course, that's a worry to me, but it's not something I'm losing sleep over," she said.
In the leaked email, Mr Harawira said he would not back the cannabis campaigning and wanted his colleagues to stop it.
He has released a statement saying the Internet Party leader, Laila Harre, had come to the same conclusions as him, and that the cannabis advertising campaign had been scrapped.