The achievements of Te Pāti Māori on November 3 had their catalyst events occurring with the outcome of the 2020 election.
In 2020 the party faced a red tidal wave at the same time as not even having just one seat upon which it could bargain with its people to come back to Te Pāti Māori. The result in 2020 gave us hope that a move in our communities was able to be achieved and we could build on the two seats won in 2020.
What we didn’t bargain for, was not just the outstanding effort of two Te Pāti Māori MPs in Parliament, but the extraordinary way in which they led many positive outcomes for Māori people in this nation.
The achievements in regard to Te Matatini funding, in regard to Matariki funding and Matariki Day, in regard to a Māori Health Commissioning Agency amongst many more, were writ large in Te Pāti Māori policy.
Labour merely adopted the intellectual rigour and capacity that was provided by Te Pāti Māori.
We roll forward to November 3, 2023 and clearly the brand build of the last three years by Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer achieved a significant and astonishing outcome for us all.
They had built our brand out of nothing and that brand carried a number of our candidates forward.
Don’t get me wrong, our candidates were individually superb, but they were hanging their hat on a hook that had been fashioned and fit for them, and they did an extraordinary job as well in bringing home those seats.
Of the six Labour MPs who held Māori electorate seats from 2014 to 2020 - Adrian Rurawhe (left), Meka Whaitiri, Peeni Henare, Nanaia Mahuta, Kelvin Davis and Rino Tirikatene - none are still electorate MPs. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The enormity of the win is demonstrated in a number of ways. Firstly, four senior Cabinet Ministers were outvoted. In addition, while Labour won the party vote, we ran our first two-tick campaign and we came close to splitting that vote in a number of the electorates. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly from the constitutional point of view, we ensured that Act and National would need a third party and at this stage they have chosen to go with New Zealand First.
The outcome for Te Pāti Māori in 2023 was in advance of where our strategic markers had been positioned by two elections.
We want to make it very clear as Te Pāti Māori that we have the mandate of our people off the street. No one else has that mandate. No-one else can over-talk us or endeavour to deride us or endeavour to say that we do not have a mandate.
To have achieved six in 2023 is a magnificent effort. New Zealand First should thank Te Pāti Māori for ensuring that it is in a position to bargain.
Whilst we accept there are other whakapapa Māori in other parties, they were not elected on a 100 per cent owned and a 100 per cent governed Māori party. They were not elected in regard to a positive, discerning, well costed policy framework advanced by Māori in regard to ensuring that the aspirations, but more particularly the expectations, of our ancestors are achieved by their mokopuna.
Just as importantly, our policy leaves no one behind. A thriving Tangata Whenua can, will and must look after everyone, this is manaakitanga. Only we will break us out of penehangatanga (welfarism), only we can break us out of rawakoretanga (poverty) and only we can break us out of wharehereheretanga (crime).
When there is talk of left and right in politics, that is a code word for Māori will be LEFT, RIGHT OUT. As the song goes
‘’Clowns to the Left of us, Jokers to the Right , Stuck in the Middle ...”.
Te Pāti Māori will be holding the Government to account to the honouring of Article One of the Treaty of Waitangi where governance was provided, not sovereignty. To the honouring of Article Two where for the exclusion of all doubt we retained unto ourselves - rangatiratanga, sovereignty over all of our domains, lands, estates and taonga. To the honouring of Article Three of the Treaty which promised us equality. All three are still being dishonoured in huge margins in 2023 in Aotearoa.
There is no doubt that within the next two elections, parties to the left of us and parties to the right of us will get it into their head that we will be and must be a natural party to any constitutional arrangement, to any movement that is formed in this nation because that is the promise of a working partnership under the Treaty.
We will not be put down and walked over and given pretence that we did not win our people’s mandate.
We will not have the tyranny of the majority taking away the rule of law and the rule of law is the Treaty of Waitangi and a Treaty-centric Aotearoa. We stand for a Aotearoa Hou. When we say that, when we campaigned on that, it takes nothing away from anyone but it helps you and us fashion a new tomorrow for our mokopuna.
John Tamihere is president of Te Pāti Māori. He is a former Labour Government Minister and chief executive of West Auckland urban Māori Authority Whānau Waipareira and the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency.
