I really like Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
I think she is an amazing co-leader and a politician whose heart is truly with the people.
Her leadership during the trauma of the Māori Party schism has been essential and it has been heartbreaking the way she was met with plotting by Doc, Eru and Mariameno rather than loyalty.
Now.
I don’t know WHY she said this.
Maybe she’s still enjoying the summer holidays, maybe being a member of Ratana she knew Shane had just bribed Ratana with $10million so was being magnanimous, WHATEVER the reason, saying the Māori Party could work with Winston…
TPM co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: ‘I could work with Winston and NZ First’
…was a terrible, terrible, terrible own goal for two reasons.
The first is that it immediately prompts the question, “If you can work with Winston, why can’t you work with your own 2 MPs you just expelled”.
The second reason it was a terrible own goal was because Winston was immediately going to use that to kick the Māori Party in the balls.
Exhibit A of aforementioned ball kicking…
We are not wasting our time with a bunch of unreformed losers. pic.twitter.com/NTIyeZjSj0
— New Zealand First (@nzfirst) January 23, 2026
…ouch.
So not only did it open Māori Party to a ball kicking, it also weakened Chippy because Winston ruled them AND Chippy out.
This is Election Year and this is SPARTA.
We are in the bear pit for the entirety of this year and needless own goals like this really must be minimised.
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Priceless.
Something Chippie has done to Winston is reversible. What Winnie has said is that he won’t work with Hipkins. What he didn’t say is that he wouldn’t work with Labour. Watch this space…
Perhaps Maori haven’t got what it takes to combine together for their own good. To decide that they will hold together and not make starts like dogs on a walk let off the leash. Let them run and sniff and yelp, they won’t bite many people, gumless and gormless as they seem to be. Too proud by half. None of us have anything to be proud of in this year that the Lord gave us, but which lord was it? It’s time to form a scrum and footle the football round and we should exert our interest to some other small party specially designed to attend to the interests of those men sick of woke that we go on about. The whole scene seems moribund. I’m reading something that brings practical and kindly to the fore. Now how to make it exciting to the voters we need. (I offered some aid to youngish man on pavement looking for a place to stay and some food. I can’t magic all that but gave him some food.) Perhaps if we kept our minds sweeping like a radar beam across the spectrum of pitfalls we are faced with in NZ, just keep on track and forget about the flighty, flouncy media darlings looking for their time in the dimelight (sic)..
It’s own goal. Fat nerd loser