Harawira email swore at bureaucrats

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Another expletive-laden email from Maori Party MP Hone Harawira has emerged, this time threatening government officials.

The email, dating from July, caused an uproar in the Maori Party. One senior official in the party's parliamentary office said Mr Harawira's swearing was "totally unacceptable" and reflected poorly on Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples and the Maori Party.

Mr Harawira sent the email, which was released yesterday under the Official Information Act, in response to a brochure prepared for consultation on the Maori flag.

Sent to six officials at Te Puni Kokiri (TPK), it said: "I'm not sure who's responsible for the radical changes to the brochure, but I ain't happy ... I am particularly f...in pissed off that some clown has decided to rebrand the `Maori' flag as the `Tino Rangatiratanga' flag, when in fact it was actually launched as the Maori flag (unless some smartarse can tell you otherwise, andI'll happily argue the case if necessary)."

Mr Harawira wrote that the brochure should be stopped and a conference call organised for two days later, a Sunday.

"Otherwise I will publicly expose this as a sham on Monday morning," he wrote. "As a normal course of events, I expect to get shafted when I'm dealing with bureaucrats, but I don't expect to get shafted over a project that I was leading for the minister.

"No shit folks – either this gets sorted out, and quickly, or I go apeshit on Monday – the day before the launch."

The first response, on Saturday July 11, was from an unnamed official. It said: "Suggest we are not able to call it `the Maori flag' as there has never been a consensus by/from Maori. Further, it may be perceived that we are pre-empting the outcome of the consultation process."

Prime Minister John Key announced the tino rangatiratanga flag last week as the flag to fly alongside the New Zealand standard at official buildings on Waitangi Day. It was chosen after a nationwide consultation led by Mr Harawira.

Further emails in response to Mr Harawira's were sent apologising for his language.

Helen Leahy, a senior official in the Maori Party, emailed on Sunday July 12, describing Mr Harawira's email as something that "needs to be dealt with".

"The very least we should expect is that concerns can be relayed about the sustance [sic] of an issue, without abusive language or threats made. The six TPK staff should not be expected to receive emails littered with swear words and ultimatums (not that anyone should)."

Ms Leahy said the email reflected on both the minister and the party.

Another in the party wrote that he had not initially received the email because it had been blocked by a filter for bad language.

"[I] wanted to offer my personal apologies. It was unacceptable, really sorry," the official wrote.

After writing the email, Mr Harawira got into trouble over another email he sent a colleague about a side-trip he took to Paris while on a parliamentary trip to Europe.

In defence of his unauthorised trip, he sent an email referring to "white motherf...ers".

Labour MP Shane Jones said yesterday the latest emails exposed the consultation process as a farce.

"The Maori Party have ended up with the flag that they wanted because it's a recruitment tool," Mr Jones said. "That flag is a separatist flag and their whole rhetoric and their whole approach is the politics of separatism."

Mr Harawira could not be reached for comment.

- © Fairfax NZ News