My own experiences have tended to confirm that in Māori culture it is leadership mana that endows the right to allocate resources, with other rules and regulations fair game to be circumvented. So it should come as no surprise when inappropriate spending occurs, whether on silk under garments or election campaigns. Tribal warring should of course also be no suprise. More generally though, in 2025 it is disappointing that we should have any political parties, let alone those actually making it to parliament, representing specific races, religions or genders. TPM has got to be the ultimate lobby group.
Everything you write resonates with me. I have only one phrase to sum up what Te Parti Maori has become: a shambles. And I'm sad about this, as I think NZ needs a genuine party aligned with Maori values, but with JT in the driving seat, this ain't going to happen.
The Maori seats in Parliament are a chimaera. Westminster geographical constituencies of uniform population are laid over a whakapapa based social system consisting of scattered hapu of varying size centred on marae. They are far from the rangatiratanga ideal, but they are made to work, and they do work much better (more democratically) than the general constituencies.
All the contradictions and defects inherent in the concept of the Maori seats are also evident in the party specifically set up to contest those seats, Te Pati Maori. Both in parliament and outside of parliament it functions in part as a Maori institution, and in part as a standard Westminster political party. The transliteration from "The Maori Party" to "Te Pati Maori" has not been sufficient to alleviate those contradictions. Consequently the party is prone to all the problems that afflict the Realm of New Zealand's "democracy" taken as a whole.
The Maori seats behave differently to the general seats. Their "swings" tend to be more pronounced, yet there is a greater underlying stability and solidity to the electorate, deriving from the continuity of hapu and marae. Therefore it is difficult for anyone to predict the future of Te Pati Maori.
My own belief is that when rangatiratanga is fully restored, Maori political representation is re-aligned with hapu and marae, and there is no longer any need for a specifically Maori political party, then the so called parliamentary "shambles" will be a thing of the past. But even at present, things are not nearly so bad as some of us like to think.
My own experiences have tended to confirm that in Māori culture it is leadership mana that endows the right to allocate resources, with other rules and regulations fair game to be circumvented. So it should come as no surprise when inappropriate spending occurs, whether on silk under garments or election campaigns. Tribal warring should of course also be no suprise. More generally though, in 2025 it is disappointing that we should have any political parties, let alone those actually making it to parliament, representing specific races, religions or genders. TPM has got to be the ultimate lobby group.
Tuku Morgan's underpants - will they ever be forgotton??
Everything you write resonates with me. I have only one phrase to sum up what Te Parti Maori has become: a shambles. And I'm sad about this, as I think NZ needs a genuine party aligned with Maori values, but with JT in the driving seat, this ain't going to happen.
Thanks so much for that analysis and informative coverage of Te PATI Māori situation.
The Maori seats in Parliament are a chimaera. Westminster geographical constituencies of uniform population are laid over a whakapapa based social system consisting of scattered hapu of varying size centred on marae. They are far from the rangatiratanga ideal, but they are made to work, and they do work much better (more democratically) than the general constituencies.
All the contradictions and defects inherent in the concept of the Maori seats are also evident in the party specifically set up to contest those seats, Te Pati Maori. Both in parliament and outside of parliament it functions in part as a Maori institution, and in part as a standard Westminster political party. The transliteration from "The Maori Party" to "Te Pati Maori" has not been sufficient to alleviate those contradictions. Consequently the party is prone to all the problems that afflict the Realm of New Zealand's "democracy" taken as a whole.
The Maori seats behave differently to the general seats. Their "swings" tend to be more pronounced, yet there is a greater underlying stability and solidity to the electorate, deriving from the continuity of hapu and marae. Therefore it is difficult for anyone to predict the future of Te Pati Maori.
My own belief is that when rangatiratanga is fully restored, Maori political representation is re-aligned with hapu and marae, and there is no longer any need for a specifically Maori political party, then the so called parliamentary "shambles" will be a thing of the past. But even at present, things are not nearly so bad as some of us like to think.