Cracks form in Te Pāti Māori, just as the Opposition gains the upper hand
At a time when you’d expect Te Pāti Māori to be soaring, it has fallen into internal crisis.
The party held itself together following the tragic death of Tāmaki Makaurau MP Takutai Kemp earlier this year. It then delivered a blistering performance to keep the seat of Tāmaki Makaurau, with Oriini Kaipara beating Labour’s Peeni Henare by about two votes to one.
For triumphing during adversity, Te Pāti Māori should be proud. They deserved to hold their heads high, and take time to recalibrate. Instead, they chose to do the exact opposite.
As the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election campaign drew to a close, the wheels started to fall off.
Glenn McConnell at Stuff, does an excellent job of highlighting the cray cray timetable of how the Māori Party managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Rather than celebrate Oriini’s incredible win in the by-election, they have been scrambling to contain the damage of Doc’s sectarian migrants slam followed by his bewildering double down and triple down that was a slap in the face of his own leadership!
Here’s what I think happened.
If you talk to Labour and Māori Party insiders, they all thought Labour would win with a small majority, so Doc’s comments made before the result was even known was the bitterness of someone who thought they had lost.
The defensiveness put up against unapproved media from talking to Oriini was part of this bitterness, and because Doc received so much love for his Māori only perspective from the kids in his DMs, he doubled down for his late night rant claiming it wasn’t his words you should feel angry at, but the English language which was ludicrous.
His intellectual certainty and purity tests reek of the middle class identity politics clique who made 2026-2020 so unbearable.
Pure temple politics kills and only hands political ammunition to our enemies.
Class and solidarity is the only way we beat this hard right Government.
Look.
I’m not going to try and decipher the latest comments by JT comparing migrant and pakeha volunteers helping Labour in the recent by-election to African Slavery, British rule of India or the Opium Wars because quite frankly I simply don’t understand the comparison any more than I understand Doc claiming we can’t take offence at his comments because it is the English language that is racist.
What I do want to focus on however is the importance of JT and the Māori Party to any change of Government.
Push past the comments and there are 4 very simple facts.
1 – JT is one of the best negotiators in the game and he is essential to ensuring Labour’s incrementalism isn’t what we need up with and he will be necessary in helping the Greens get the best deal possible as well.
2 – The Māori Party economic policy is as close to socialism we are ever going to get with taxes placed upon the rich and removed from the poor. They have an entire raft of taxes aimed at speculators that will tax them while providing the money we all need for our public services and infrastructure.
3 – Look at all the polling and Labour + Greens + MP = 51%
4 – NZF + Labour (with the Greens held hostage) is not worth fighting for.
This anti-Treaty, anti-Māori, anti-disabled, anti-renter, anti-beneficiary and anti-environment Government have strangled off the common good for their donors interests and I will gladly drink a glass of of Green Party woke and Māori Party sectarianism to ensure Labour Party incrementalism doesn’t end up being all we can hope for.
The Māori Party are too important to our collective hope for real change to write off.
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