Who killed the Ma¯ori Party? Jo Moir
The Ma¯ori Party was wiped out of Parliament on Saturday night after Labour’s clean sweep of the Ma¯ori seats. While Tamati Coffey’s win in Waiariki over Ma¯ori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell sealed the party’s fate, was the writing actually on the wal
Many have wept for the Ma¯ ori Party after their shock exit from Parliament on Saturday night. The irony has not been lost on the party’s co-leader, Marama Fox, that if those who couldn’t imagine politics without the party had bothered to vote for its MPs, then they wouldn’t be in this position.
But does the party have a way of coming back in the form of New Zealander of the Year Lance O’Sullivan?
Could he be just what the doctor ordered to resuscitate the flatlining Ma¯ ori Party?
Flavell openly wept as he came to terms with losing, to Labour’s Tamati Coffey, the Waiariki seat he’d held for the past 12 years.
Like NZ First in 2008, the Ma¯ ori Party faces political oblivion unless it can bolster its membership and remind voters why it matters.
While many in the party are still going through the grief and anger stages, there’s also a new generation who by Monday were starting to feel optimistic about its rebirth.
So what went so wrong?
Flavell has questioned whether the poor party vote was because the time is up for Ma¯ ori believing in a ‘‘strong independent voice’’ in Parliament. He personally has done his dash – ‘‘the people have spoken’’, he said on Sunday.
There’s a strong sense among Ma¯ ori MPs that if your people don’t vote you in then you have no place there.
Flavell has listened to what the people of Waiariki have said and that meant he needed no time to announce his retirement from all politics.
Coffey reflects a new generation and, combined with a new Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern, Ma¯ ori voters in Waiariki found something new to put their faith in.
Coffey, a former television presenter, convincingly won the seat with 53.6 per cent of the vote. But Waiariki wasn’t the only seat the Ma¯ ori Party had hung its hopes on.
Ma¯ ori Party candidate and rugby league star Howie Tamati had polled ahead of Labour’s Adrian Rurawhe in Te Tai Haua¯ uru but on the night Rurawhe won 47 per cent of the vote to Tamati’s 40.4 per cent.
And then there was HaurakiWaikato, the seat that is home to Kingitanga (the Ma¯ ori movement). Not only did incumbent Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta win the seat with 72.3 per cent of the vote, but she also increased her majority despite her opposition being respected tribal leader and Ma¯ ori Party candidate Rahui Papa.
Ma¯ ori King Tu¯ heitia personally endorsed Papa and eventually the entire party but with only 27.7 per cent of the vote Papa didn’t even have a lookin on the night.
Does the Ma¯ ori King have any influence at all?
Mahuta has no doubt Tu¯ heitia will reflect on his decision to involve Kingitanga in politics and realise the movement is ‘‘bigger than that’’.
Tu¯ heitia’s closest adviser up until a couple of weeks out from the election was Ma¯ ori Party president Tuku Morgan. For many, his relationship with both the King and the Ma¯ ori Party meant his position had become clouded.
Mahuta says people in HaurakiWaikato were ‘‘confused’’ by the King’s messaging and while she already had a strong support base, she said her increased majority on the night came from those who disagreed with what Tu¯ heitia had done.
Last year Tu¯ heitia made the rare move of using his speech at his coronation anniversary to rule out ever voting for Labour again, which he blamed on Labour for saying it would never work with the Ma¯ ori Party.
Andrew Little was Labour leader at the time and had no idea what was coming his way until he was rushed off Tu¯ rangawaewae marae. The relationship with Kingitanga soured from that point on.
At the King’s coronation anniversary this year Ardern had taken over as leader but
Ma¯ ori MPs in her caucus warned her against attending out of fear she would be tainted by the same reception.
Mahuta hasn’t heard from Tu¯ heitia, her cousin, since winning the seat back but she says there’s no animosity between them.
She was raised in Kingitanga and was mentored by Tu¯ heitia’s mother, Dame Te Atairangikaahu.
‘‘I suspect I’m probably a bit too opinionated but I make no apologies for that. I was brought up in the Kingitanga movement with strong leaders and mentoring under Tu¯ heitia’s mother.
‘‘That was a different kind of leadership to what it is now,’’ she says.
Mahuta wants Tu¯ heitia’s advisers to step down so wiser counsel can fill the gap.
She says his current advisers are ‘‘delusional, confused and wrong’’ and won’t take any of the responsibility for what has happened to the Ma¯ ori Party.
Mahuta says she’s not going to give the Ma¯ ori Party its 2020 campaign strategy but they weren’t ‘‘coherent in their messaging to Ma¯ ori’’.
The ‘‘writing was on the wall in 2014 when Labour won back a number of the seats’’ and Ma¯ ori were becoming ‘‘increasingly uncomfortable’’ with the relationship the Ma¯ ori Party had with National.
Coffey’s win is symbolic of a generational change in Ma¯ oridom and represents a ‘‘new and fresh perspective’’ in the same way Ardern does.
While it’s a good problem to have so many Ma¯ ori in the Labour caucus – there’s 13 now that Labour has 45 MPs – Mahuta says apportioning roles and responsibilities to Ma¯ ori MPs will be a challenge for Ardern.
Labour has been accused in the past of overlooking its Ma¯ ori MPs and the promotion of Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis to deputy was just the beginning in what Ma¯ ori expect to see in terms of increased responsibility within the party.
Ardern’s portfolio allocations will be scrutinised.
Some close to Tu¯ heitia believe his meddling in politics was the ‘‘kiss of death’’ for the Ma¯ ori Party and questions hang over Morgan and how Labour’s biggest win against the Ma¯ ori Party happened
in the seat home to Kingitanga. Will the Ma¯ ori Party rise from the ashes? Sources within the party have no doubt it can come back from its shock exit at the election, but much will need to change. O’Sullivan is a front runner to take over the leadership of the party. Scrapping the co-leaders and putting up one strong voice to represent the party is something likely to be considered.
The Kaitaia doctor hasn’t made any decisions about his political plans yet but there’s plenty of groundswell for him to take on the job. Widening the party’s appeal beyond the Ma¯ ori seats is going to be crucial to its revival and O’Sullivan is someone who has strong crossover with both Ma¯ ori and nonMa¯ ori.
While he could look to stand in Waiariki in 2020 against Coffey (O’Sullivan’s wife’s family is from the area), he could just as easily take a run in the Northland seat.
Iwi support for the Ma¯ ori Party has dropped away and rebuilding the party’s base will require a lot of groundwork to get them back on board.
As it stands, if National and NZ First go into coalition, the Iwi Chairs Forum, which many Ma¯ ori see as elitist and not at all representative of their views, would be the only Ma¯ ori voice in that government arrangement.
What does the future hold for the Ma¯ ori Party?
Fox is optimistic about the future of the party. While it may not be back in 2020 in its current form, and she may not be part of the leadership team, she says it will return.
Without a doubt, says Fox,the party’s ties to National played a big part in their demise but she’s frustrated the increasingly bad statistics for Ma¯ ori were always blamed on her and Flavell.
‘‘The biggest thing that hurt us was sitting next to the National Government when the number of homeless and those in poverty was increasing.’’
She says it’s impossible to make ‘‘legacy change’’ unless you’re one of the bigger parties in Parliament and that’s why the Ma¯ ori Party needs to rebuild and change its strategy. Someone like O’Sullivan would be a game-changer for the party leadership but not because he has a high profile, Fox says.
‘‘Getting someone like Lance is future thinking but he’s great because he’d be a great minister of health, not because of his family name or because everyone knows him.
‘‘He comes from a great area of social deprivation and because of that he’s had to be innovative,’’ she says.
If those Labour MPs who swept the Ma¯ ori seats end up on the backbenches of Opposition then Fox says it will be a ‘‘long winter’’ for Ma¯ ori without a strong voice advocating for ‘‘significant change’’. Maybe then, she says, Ma¯ ori will realise the full impact of what has been done.