2020 Election Results: Maori Party Almost Returns To Parliament As Rawiri Waititi Leads Waiariki

The country’s “unapologetic Maori voice” is poised to return to Parliament with Rawiri Waititi poised to wrest the Waiariki seat from Labor’s Tāmati Coffey.

Speaking at his election night party in Tāmaki Makaurau, co-leader John Tamihere called the return of the party, eliminated in the 2017 elections, as an “incredible result”.

“This is rewriting the political history of our country,” Tamihere said, as the roughly 200 supporters gathered at Et Tu Bistro in the Te Atatu hall erupted into chants of the “Maori Party”.

But it was a bittersweet moment for Tamihere, losing Auckland to current Labor Peeni Henare.

“I love mihi Peeni and her whānau, for the way she conducted her campaign,” said Tamihere.

He thanked Maori Party supporters in Waiariki’s electorate and voters who heard his calls to split the Maori vote, giving the Maori Party the electorate’s vote and his party vote to Labor, whose Maori MPs, including Coffey, would enter. on the list anyway.

There was also the possibility that the party would get another MP with her party’s vote hovering around 1 percent and potentially increasing, meaning that number one on the Debbie Ngarewa-Packer list could enter Parliament for the first time.

“I think there’s a great chance Debbie will come in as well,” Tamihere said.

When asked how he felt about the fact that, sitting at number seven on the list, he would not join them, Tamihere said that he was not disappointed and that it was his duty as a co-leader to stand behind them.

However, Tamihere was not finished, indicating another race in 2023.

“Next time it will be seven [seats]”, he said, again before a great reception.

The fate of the Maori Party was on a knife’s edge all election night.

The closest ones, as predicted, were in Tāmaki Makaurau, Waiariki and Te Tai Hauāuru, with Labor leading over the Maori party at just hundreds each for much of the night.

In the West, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer lost to Labor Adrian Rurawhe.

Labor won the other four Maori electorates.

The 2020 elections saw the Maori Party launch a campaign of struggle.

The 2017 elections resulted in a tumultuous shift in Maori politics, with all seven Maori seats for Labor candidates.

He eliminated the Maori Party after nine years in the Government together with National, ending the careers of the stalwart Marama Fox and Te Ururoa Flavell, defeated by the same party against which they settled in protest, after the Foreshore and Seabed debacle .

But despite being outside the Beehive, the party remained active and vocal in its criticism of the government’s actions and results for Maori.

The Labor-led government of Jacinda Ardern ushered in a record number of Māori MPs, who make up about 23 percent of the representatives, even though they make up only 16 percent of the population.

Yet despite this, Maori remained on the bottom rung in most outcomes, including health, education and housing, largely driven by persistent inequality and racism, and leaving the door open for an independent Maori voice.

The party was renewed, naming new leaders in former Labor MP and cabinet member Tamihere, and Ngarewa-Packer, an Iwi leader from Ngāti Ruanui.

The pair brought their own unique talents to their roles, and Manurewa Marae president and party member Rangi McLean once referred to Ngarewa-Packer as a “balance” for Tamihere, whom he called a “taniwha,” who He is not ashamed of the political controversy. and / or outright offense.

Its broader membership was also proactive in recent years in raising issues at Oranga Tamariki and the disproportionate elevation of Maori babies to their young mothers.

For his part, Waititi was instrumental in leading the Covid-19 response in the Te Whānau ā Apanui rohe, east of the Bay of Plenty.

They also called on the government to account for the financing of Whānau Ora, which in the end received a record investment from Minister Peeni Henare.

Launching its campaign in the Hoani Waititi marae in June, the party and its seven candidates positioned themselves as “blatantly Maori”, vowing to defend Maori and hold decision-makers to account.

He set out to devise a series of progressive policies that included raising the minimum wage to $ 25 an hour, making Maori language and history core subjects in school, and giving conservation lands back to Maori.

But, in that unapologetic nature, he pushed the conversation even further.

He promised to change the name of New Zealand to Aotearoa and return the original Maori names to our towns and cities.

He called on a Maori parliament, that 25 percent of government spending go to Maori, and that no more Maori babies be taken into the care of the state and instead diverted funds to a Maori-run organization.

In doing so, their policies promised to guide the country into a long-needed conversation about constitutional transformation and to honor our founding document, Te Tiriti or Waitangi.

However, his anti-immigrant stance on housing drew widespread criticism from Maori and non-Maori, with some calling his longstanding alliance with National unforgivable, as did Tamihere and his controversial style.

How much influence he has over the new government remains to be seen, however it is clear that the “unapologetic Maori voice” has returned.