'God it hurt us as a country': Outgoing National MP on Luxon's Treaty compromise

Outgoing National MP Vanessa Weenink says the compromise the National leader made around Treaty issues to his coalition partners cost the party and hurt the country.Vanessa Weenink told RNZ some of the rhetoric and discussion around the Māori language and around the Treaty has been "some of the most damaging things" that happened in the last term."And frankly, that is not the National Party. That is our coalition partners, and particularly ACT, and I've had a guts full of it," Weenink said, adding she was relieved to no longer be part of the coalition.Weenink lost the Banks Peninsula seat to Labour's Tracey McLellan this election by slightly more than two thousand votes. The party vote went to Labour, but National wasn't far behind.Speaking to Midday Report, Weenink said voters had told her the National Party "wasn't like this," and that its coalition partners had "pulled us too far to the right."She said people thought National was doing things that weren't in line with its values. Weenink said she chose the National Party because she thought its values were most in line with her own, particularly around the Treaty.She referenced her belief that having the ability to understand and pronounce Māori words would be a huge advantage in any career she undertook in New Zealand.One of the key issues she thought there would be "a lot of deep reflection" around was the Treaty."Part of me is really relieved to not be in that coalition."She described how difficult it was to learn Christopher Luxon had conceded the Treaty Principles Bill"That was a compromise position that the Prime Minister chose to make and I respect him for the decisions that he has to make and having to make those tough calls is what leadership is about but my God it cost us and my God it hurt us as a country."I don't know if the National Party will be truly forgiven for that and I think we've got to spend the next term and probably the next 10 terms making up for that, because quite frankly, it's hurt."She acknowledged she wasn't part of the coalition negotiations, so it would be unfair to judge if Luxon gave too much away, or whether ACT and New Zealand First were too strong for National to hold onto its values."None of us know the difficulties of having to make that decision. Whether he would make the same decision again with the benefit of hindsight, that's a different point, but it doesn't change the situation that he faced and they faced at the time."Despite this, Weenink said Luxon had managed to keep the coalition together last term."He pulled off a minor miracle in that and I think the opposition last time was quite disappointed about the fact that we managed to make it through a full three-year term."Weenink referenced a motto from the infantry, "onward", acknowledging there was another battle coming and "we just have to keep going."She said the National Party was the biggest party in Parliament for a reason, and "that's because we have the best people," but said the party was "losing some of our greatest people out of this place," acknowledging those senior National MPs who were out."To me that's a travesty."But also, leaving this place, there's a little bit of me that's slightly relieved because there are some things that I won't miss."She described those things as having to have social media as a big part of her job, "I just get constant horrible hate from people all around the place and I'm not going to miss that.""I'm not going to miss people yelling out their car windows to go kill myself.""I'm not going to miss having my tyres drilled twice."I'm not going to miss my car being egged or my house being protested outside of by Palestinian supporters. I'm not going to miss any of that."She acknowledged those things were partly due to being a politician, and specifically a female politicians in the mid 2020s, but also acknowledged it was "tied together" to her descriptions of people in the electorate saying they hated the National Party.