Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Are we surprised by these allegations we've heard about the Māori Party?

Listen, go on and tell me that any of the allegations that we've heard about the Māori Party in the last 36 hours surprise you.

Does it shock you in any way to find out that one of their MPs allegedly paid her son $120,000 of taxpayer money, that she couldn't apparently balance her own budget? And that her son allegedly abused parliamentary staff so badly that he was trespassed from the grounds?

No really, right? Not really a surprise.

And this feels exactly like the kind of stuff you would expect to be happening when a political party pulls together a collection of activists who have no respect for the rules - which they demonstrate on a seemingly weekly basis by not showing up to their jobs in Parliament, who can't even do up a pair of leather shoes to go to work, and who think nepotism is just another way of showing love to your family. Their words, not mine.

Now, do you really think that that alleged incident where Eru Kapa-Kingi shouted at parliamentary staff and threatened to knock one out happened on Budget Day 2024 - as in 18 months ago, and we have only just found out now?

Which has me wondering, what else is going on in there that we don't know about yet?

Now, I'm not surprised by what's being revealed. And what it means is that I'm weirdly not actually terribly exercised by it, certainly not in the way that I would be if this was National or Labour or any other serious party.

I would expect in those instances for heads to roll, and I would expect explanations and media stand-ups and real interrogations by the media and people appearing on the show to be grilled.

But I don't expect that with the Māori Party. Now, that should worry the Māori Party, because what that means is that I, and anyone else who feels like me, don't take them seriously.

We don't think they're serious people. We don't expect them to hold standards up.

We regard what we're seeing as more of a clown show that needs to be contained so it doesn't contaminate the rest of Parliament.

So good luck to them making it into a future Cabinet, which they're obviously quite keen on, if they're not being taken seriously by us.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.