The Children's Minister has backtracked and apologised to an ACT MP after accusations of nastiness and race-based attacks went flying at Parliament yesterday, in a clash between ACT and Labour over the Children's Ministry.
Kelvin Davis told ACT's Karen Chhour to enter the Māori world and stop looking through a vanilla lens.
Karen Chhour spoke to Māni Dunlop.
And Kelvin Davis supplied this statement:
"I absolutely acknowledge Karen's whakapapa and hope my comments did not cause her personal offence, I probably could have made my point better and I have apologised for that.
"My comments were really mean [sic] to allude to ACT Party's policies in general including her recent Member's Bill calling for a 'colourblind' approach to child protection.
"This approach has failed Māori for generations - today 67% of children in state care are Māori - and I will never stop defending a by Māori for Māori approach.
"The ACT Party often preaches about being the party for all, but if they truly want that then I do encourage them to cross over the bridge that is Te Tiriti so that they can view the issues they care about from a Māori lens," said Kelvin Davis in a statement.
