Te Pāti Māori’s Crossroads - Democracy, Mana and the Risk of Eating Itself

Political Showcase Aotearoa - 3rd October 2025

The trouble with Te Pāti Māori is that it has never been just another political party. From its inception, it was born of frustration - a refusal to be voiceless in a Parliament that too often treated Māori interests as an afterthought. It has always carried the weight of being more than itself. Not simply a caucus of MPs, but a living embodiment of kaupapa Māori politics, a symbol of sovereignty, resistance and renewal.

That is precisely why today’s turmoil matters.

This week, the activist movement Toitū Te Tiriti severed its ties with Te Pāti Māori, accusing it of drifting into a “dictatorship model,” centralising power in the hands of a few and neglecting its constitutional obligations to consult its grassroots. That language cuts deep, because Te Pāti Māori was supposed to be the antithesis of all that - the antidote to the top-down politics of Wellington. To be called a dictatorship by your own whānau is no small thing.

The fracture within

The grievances are not trivial. Missed annual general meetings, sidelined electorate branches, decisions made in the name of Māori without consultation with Māori. These are not mere administrative hiccups. They strike at the heart of what it means to be a democratic kaupapa Māori party. The charge is not just that Te Pāti Māori is messy or poorly run. It is that the party risks replicating the very colonial structures it exists to dismantle.

If that is true, the irony is bitter.

Of course, the party leadership pushes back. There are explanations, some legitimate - grief over the loss of an MP, pandemic disruptions, the sheer pressure of carrying Māori aspirations in an unforgiving parliamentary arena. But explanations don’t erase the perception that mana has been traded for control, or that dissent has been suppressed in the name of unity.

Why this matters beyond the bubble

Sceptics might shrug and say this is just another squabble in the fractious world of Māori politics. But they’d be missing the bigger picture. Te Pāti Māori holds the Māori seats in Parliament. Not all of them, but enough to matter and with them the symbolic role of carrying Māori voices into the highest halls of decision-making.

If the party is seen as disconnected from its grassroots, if its mana as a democratic vessel is weakened, then not only do Māori lose confidence, but so too does New Zealand’s broader project of building a democracy that genuinely honours Te Tiriti.

Democracy, after all, is not just about counting votes once every three years. It is about trust - trust that those who claim to speak for you are truly accountable, transparent and fair. If Te Pāti Māori falters in this, it hands ammunition to its critics and risks diminishing the legitimacy of Māori politics altogether. That is a cost too heavy to bear.

A fork in the road

So where does Te Pāti Māori go from here? There are really only two paths.

One is humility - to take the criticism seriously, to return to its constitution, to open the doors of hui and let the branches breathe again. To embrace tikanga not as a slogan but as a lived practice of decision-making, slow and sometimes messy, but rooted in whanaungatanga and collective responsibility. If Te Pāti Māori can show that it is big enough to correct itself, it will emerge stronger and New Zealand democracy will be better for it.

The other path is pride - to double down, dismiss the complaints as sour grapes and insist that leadership knows best. That may keep the waka upright in the short term, but it risks losing the people who give the waka meaning. Because in kaupapa politics, you don’t sail alone. If the crew abandons ship, the captain is just a person yelling into the wind.

The broader lesson for Aotearoa

For the country as a whole, the lesson here is sharp. Māori politics are not a sideshow. They are central to the health of New Zealand’s democracy. When a Māori party thrives in a democratic and accountable way, it doesn’t just uplift Māori, it enriches the whole system. It challenges the complacency of the old parties, broadens the conversation, and forces uncomfortable but necessary reckonings about justice and sovereignty.

But when a Māori party falters, it is not only Māori who lose. All of Aotearoa loses a chance to become a fairer, more honest, more representative democracy.

A final word

Te Pāti Māori is at a crossroads. It can be the living expression of tino rangatiratanga, or it can collapse into the same ego and hierarchy it once condemned. The choice it makes now will echo far beyond its own electorate.

For Māori, the stakes are about justice and voice. For the rest of us, it’s about whether we are serious about building a democracy that reflects all of Aotearoa or whether we are content with the same old voices rearranging the same old chairs.

Just one final thought on this. There will be no shortage of people out there who will pile-on at the sight of what is happening in Te Pāti Māori. Given some of the inflammatory and performative behaviour we’ve seen that seems deliberate to rile people up, I can understand. But this party has a very tough mandate and as political parties go, is still very young.

What I personally find more disturbing and frightening is how two parties, Labour and National, that have been around for 109 years and 89 years respectively seem incapable of conducting themselves in a way that is tangibly “for” New Zealand society.

In the old order of things, National were the mean bastards who just looked after the farmers and big business and Labour were the doughty social warriors who cleaned things up and restored a degree of equity and fairness.

Those days are over. National are now dominated by fringe parties tearing them in directions even uglier than their own instincts would countenance. That’s bad enough, but what really sticks in my throat is how completely and unendingly Labour have abandoned all their mana in a sad and pathetic attempt to be all things to all people.

No spine, no morality, no courage and no new ideas. I’ve heard from a lot of people criticising the Greens for adding social justice to their political mandate rather than just sticking to environmental issues. Well, from where I stand, there is a reason for it and that reason is that the world of politics cannot abide a vacuum and the Greens have been filling a vacuum created by the disappearance of Labour as a defender of the small things that matter in society.

So, I’m worried about the clown car government we have, but overall, they are just doing what it says on the tin. Te Pāti Māori are at a crossroads that could see them be something great or something ugly and destructive. The Greens have their issues, but at least they stand for something. As a progressive liberal in the old-fashioned sense, my grief and anger are most deeply aimed at Labour for the way they long ago sold out to the neo-liberal forces that have done so much to wreck the fabric of our society.

If Hipkins can’t show some moral leadership in the face of Luxon and his smug corporate schill behaviour, then get the hell out of the way and find someone with some courage. Sadly, I look for “green shoots” of hope within Labour and as hard as I will them to be real, I suspect I may be kidding myself. Maybe Labour are a dead man walking. New Zealand can’t afford for that to be the truth.

Gloat all you like about the turmoil in Te Pāti Māori, but kids play up and we accommodate and acknowledge that they will grow up and become good citizens. But at 109 years old, Labour should be the kaumātua in Parliament. Instead they are like callow teenagers who still don’t know who they want to be when they grow up and stand for nothing but their own survival.

As my parents used to say to me a long time ago when I failed o be who I was raised to be, “John, we aren’t angry, we’re disappointed”. Boy that used to sting. Labour, I’m both angry and deeply disappointed. Do something about it.