Ready to govern? Yeah, nah

A series of blunders has done nothing to convince voters that Te Pāti Māori is a credible option - and that's bad news for Labour.

- Danyl McLauchlan

There's a certain style of left-wing movement - epitomised by the Greens and Te Pāti Māori - that wants more from politics than merely changing the government. They want to change politics itself. This requires an experimental phase as they try out alternatives to the mainstream parties they hope to replace. What does this new party believe? Who runs it? Who are its friends and enemies? Te Pāti Māori is suffering through a very public and messy attempt to answer these questions.

During the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris attacked the ethnic diversity of Labour's campaign team via a social media post: "This blows my mind!! Indians, Asians, Black and Pākehā campaigning to take a Māori seat from Māori." This seems to have either triggered a civil war inside his own party, or - more likely - forced an existing conflict into the open.

Ferris stood by his statements, defying his co-leaders' order to apologise, explaining that electorate MPs enjoyed a kaupapa that placed them beyond the instructions of their party.

Shortly afterwards, party whip Mariameno Kapa-Kingi was demoted. Her son Eru Kapa-Kingi - a former vice-president of the party - then declared that the Toitū Te Tiriti movement - the grassroots organisation that organised 2024's mass protest against the Treaty Principles Bill - would no longer align itself with Te Pāti Māori, accusing it of operating on a “dictatorship model”.

John Tamihere - a former Labour cabinet minister who became president of Te Pāti Māori in 2022 and seems to enjoy a level of control unmatched by the executives of other parliamentary parties - responded that the claim of dictatorship was “a beautiful thing”.