Artist Hohepa Thomspon, also known as Hori, has called out politicians Judith Collins and David Seymour in a new waiata performed opera-style in a pub.
In the video, he and his mates sing the song along to the tune of Pokarekare Ana.
Hori often draws attention to political issues such as racism through his art.
“In this case a waiata, which is art in itself, to get people talking about certain issues that affect Māori especially in Aotearoa.”
He says in this waiata, he hopes to highlight Collins’ and Seymour’s ignorance on kaupapa or issues that affect Māori.
“They’ve been very vocal on different issues and this is a way to really challenge their lack of knowledge of our world, te ao Māori, and to almost throw that wero that maybe it’s time, especially for Rawiri Seymour, to look into his whakapapa and know more about whakaaro Māori and the way we are and our tikanga before he does things that are detrimental to our people.”
Earlier this month, Act Party leader David Seymour posted a tweet with the priority code for Māori to access the Covid-19 vaccine.
“I think it was a real low blow for Māori, for people who have already have quite a lot of mistrust in government agencies and people like that. To do something like that really hit home.”
National leader Judith Collins has also recently made headlines for the way she has responded to the media. When asked questions related to what she's done to support Māori and Pasifika communities she's responded with the fact she has a Samoan husband.
Hori says her responses are “a bit of a joke” and she’s “out of touch on Pasifika tikanga”.
“I think every Māori has heard that one ‘I’m not racist, I’ve got a Māori mate’… It doesn’t really give you a racist get out of jail free card and it’s kind of become a bit of a joke now, that tokenistic kind of approach 'that I know everything about that culture because my partner is Samoan'.”
So far the video has been viewed more than 100,000 times on Facebook and Hori hopes it reaches the two politicians.
“They are a bit out of touch with our world and this is that wero to them to start to educate yourself more before you start talking,” he says.