The tears shed by the Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell over the election result were perhaps so much for himself or his lost seat or even for his party's last foothold in Parliament. It could also have been for what this result will likely mean for the place of Maori in New Zealand politics.
The Maori Party was formed on the idea that an indigenous minority needs a distinctive voice in national politics, independent of other political parties because its interests and status cannot be completely satisfied by a mainstream party.
It was born in protest at the last Labour Government's attempt to erase customary tribal claims to the foreshore and seabed. But if the founding idea was sound, the creation of an independent party probably should have happened 10 years earlier, when the country adopted MMP.
Proportional representation looked certain to give Maori a distinct presence in politics, so certain that the 1986 royal commission on electoral reform thought they would no longer need a separate electoral roll and reserved seats in Parliament. MMP was adopted in 1993.
For a few years thereafter it seemed Winston Peters' newly formed New Zealand First party would represent Maori interests. It won all five Maori electorates at the 1996 election. But the seats returned to Labour in 1999 when NZ First's coalition with National ended badly for both.