This election could spell the end of the Māori party for good – and that would be a tragedy
As New Zealanders head to the voting booths this week, the chance of a comeback for the only Indigenous-focused Māori party are hanging by a thread.
In 2017, Te Ururoa Flavell, who had been minister of Māori development for three years, lost his seat in the general elections, which saw him and the Māori party exit parliament stage right.
Everyone in the room fell completely silent, our eyes fixed on anything but the podium in the corner, where a devastated Flavell hung his head and cried.
I had just started a new role in communications for the ministry, and in true Māori form, we were throwing our outgoing minister a jovial poroporoaki, or farewell ceremony.
But the mood in the room shifted with Flavell’s visible heartbreak, bringing home the gravity of what had just happened. There would no longer be a dedicated Māori voice in New Zealand’s parliament.
Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-led government ushered in an impressive number of Māori MPs – in fact, a record number. It sounds good but something has been missing. None of them have been a staunch enough voice for Māori.
Do not get me wrong – Labour’s Māori caucus have made some gains, but they have also stood silent on key Māori issues. They will not join the chorus of Māori leaders calling out child services, who take Māori newborns at five times the rate of nonMāori. They will not call out Ardern’s no-show at the Ihumaatao land dispute. And when Tauranga-Moana iwi fiercely demonstrated on parliament grounds, they just stood there, towing the party line.
Not as bad as Māori politicians in NZ First who will throw Māori under the bus to appease their voters. National’s Māori MP’s appear out of touch with the grassroots. The Green party is better, but it has other priorities.
Māori remain at the bottom rung for most outcomes, including health, education, and housing, and things do not appear to be improving. Inequality and racism are debilitating for our communities, and we need politicians who will call it out and fight for change. We need an independent Māori voice in parliament.
It has been a rocky start through Covid-19, but the Māori party is giving it one last crack. With little money behind it, the party has done well to fight for a place in the country’s political debates and is fronting impressive candidates in the nation’s seven Māori electorates. The party is positioning itself as that unapologetic Māori voice, promising to advocate for Māori and hold decisionmakers to account.
Just before the weekend, I watched its co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and John Tamihere in different debates – their contributions refreshing and valuable.
Both were unwavering in bringing the focus back to Māori. Tamihere said we need Māori quotas for medical school because our kids are generally getting poorer educations. We were told not to put up with the status quo. We were told not to put up with racism. The Māori party has also introduced a suite of excellent policies, including lifting the minimum wage, making Māori language and history core subjects at school, and returning conservation land to Māori.
But it pushes the boat out even further. The party wants to change New Zealand’s name to Aotearoa and return the original Māori names to our towns and cities. It wants to establish a Māori parliament, and dedicate 25% of the government’s spend to Māori. While it might be pie in the sky stuff, we need people in power who at least want to be transformational.
However, the party is not without its flaws. Its anti-immigration stance on housing was misplaced, and some people still hold a grudge over its
former alliance with National. Tamihere, a former politician, has rubbed a few people up the wrong way over the years, and he is the only one in their lineup with real experience.
Their likelihood of success seems to be fading, with the polls showing the party falling well short of the five percent of votes needed to get in. Their strategy is to vie for the candidate vote, holding onto hopes that three of the seven seats may just be winnable.
Even if the Māori party did win a seat, I doubt Labour’s Māori caucus would want a bar of forming a coalition government with them – when they could show Labour up by saying all the things they cannot.
Come this weekend, there is a very real chance that the Māori party will not get back in. That will spell the end of the party for good, and the end of an important era for Māori in New Zealand politics.