Māori ‘under siege’ in 2024, must fight back in 2025 – Ngarewa-Packer

Te Pāti Māori has had to adopt a new way of debating, operating and even thinking in Parliament in response to the Government’s “onslaught” against te ao Māori, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says.

In an end-of-year interview with Newsroom, the Te Tai Hauauru MP reflected on how 2024 has differed from her first term in the House and what next year may hold.

“The first term, [co-leader] Rawiri [Waititi] and I came in and we knew we had to disrupt the place and we were pushing for transformational change and we were dealing with a Government that was about incremental change. For us, it wasn’t enough. We were pushing them to go more, go harder, be more committed,” she says.

“This Government, it’s just trying to defend against their attacks on anything advancing Māori. We’ve had to engage a different set of not only debating but of thinking, and at the same time bringing on four new MPs and staff.”

Neither Ngarewa-Packer nor Waititi had been in Parliament before their surprise return to the House at the 2020 election. That meant bringing on new MPs has come with its own learning curve.

While they expected to have time after last year’s election to induct the new MPs and bed in to the procedures of Parliament, they instead found themself facing the Government’s 100-day plan.

“I mean, what the hell was that? It was just an onslaught. Our whole sense has been an Opposition feeling that we’re under siege – under siege in the nation, under siege in the House, under siege in various kaupapa, whether it be health, Māori wards, [Oranga Tamariki Act section] 7AA,” Ngarewa-Packer recalls.

“We never had to explain who we were, in the last three years. The term we always used was ‘unapologetically Māori’. This year, in this term, it’s actually been about defending being Māori.”

On the other hand, she is quick to note the successes of the year. The hīkoi, Wellington’s largest ever protest, New Zealand’s largest ever Māori rights protest, is the most obvious example of that.

“I think that’s the unintended consequence [of the Government’s actions]. We’ve never been outnumbered, but we’ve perhaps been out-organised. From the moment we arrived, we’ve deliberately used this year to reignite our people and connect and grow the leadership of our people,” she says.

“It was our people who ran the hīkoi – and I don’t mean all Te Pāti Māori people either. We had a strategy of growing Toitū Te Tiriti and being able to ensure that activation happens at a local level. The hīkoi was a manifestation of a whole year of various activations.”

At the same time, that local work has spread the caucus thin. Exacerbating that is Tāmaki Makaurau MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp’s bout of kidney disease, for which she’s been off work since July.

It’s not unusual for Te Pāti Māori to miss votes or debates in the House due to having fewer MPs around. The party’s six MPs mean it can no longer ask another party to cast proxy votes on its behalf as happened last term – that’s only possible for parties with five or fewer members.

Ngarewa-Packer is aware of this problem and some of the criticism that has accompanied the party’s occasional absence from Parliament.

“We’re not only six MPs, we actually have huge electorates. Geographically, I think we have five of the largest electorates in the country,” she says. (It’s four of the 10 largest, by area, or five of the 13 largest).

“It is a balancing trick. Māori are kanohi kitea, they like to see you around and be seen at things. Our whole first quarter [of the year], for example, is spent out. We have Rātana which is two or three days out [of the office], we have Waitangi which is a week out and obviously Matatini, just to look at the next three months,” Ngarewa-Packer explains.

“What we’ve tried to do is be able to have the House filled with those who are the different portfolio holders, but it is a constant challenge. And I’ll be really honest, there is a constant demand from our whānau and our communities, not only to be seen but in this particular year, to be helping to advocate. Those are the people that put us here and to be able to receive and be there for them, and then be able to bring some of that into the House, then to be at the multiple select committees, is a balancing trick. I don’t know that we’ve figured it out, but we always put our people first.”

The party also tries to use the House to speak to their constituents, where possible.

“What we try to do is use the platform of the House to not only show our people how we’re advocating and fighting for them, but to also understand and break down the legislation. If you go into Pātea, Hāwera or New Plymouth, the fish and chips shops have got Parliamentary TV on. You would never have had that in our communities. We’re just trying to get them to participate and understand as well.”

On the party’s big scandal of the year, over allegations of data gathered by Manurewa Marae for Covid-19 vaccinations being used for electoral purposes, Ngarewa-Packer said she remained confident ongoing reviews would clear the local candidate, Kemp, of any wrongdoing.

“I’m confident that everything they should have done did happen,” she says. The perceived conflict of interest – Kemp was the chief executive of the marae – was for the Electoral Commission to determine and manage, not Kemp or the marae, she argues.

“If they think they didn’t manage that well, then that’s on that agency. Certainly not on our candidate or the marae themselves … Also I just feel sorry for that community. All the politicians have gone now. [Labour’s] Peeni [Henare] is in Parliament, Takutai’s in there, and they’ve got to sit there and wear it all.”

Looking forward, Ngarewa-Packer doesn’t see an end to the Government’s “onslaught” next year. First, there’s the elephant in the room of the Treaty Principles Bill.

“Our priority at the moment is for everyone to have a Tiriti submission Christmas. Have your hangī, have your cake, and then have your Tiriti submissions. I’m loving the dynamics – our electorate had ‘Flat whites and Treaty rights’ as the theme at their cafes,” she says.

Submissions close at midnight on January 7. The committee will then be hearing submissions at the same time as the political set pieces at the start of the year, which are already Māori spaces like Rātana and the Waitangi Day ceremony.

Once the Treaty Principles Bill is voted down in May, as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has promised will happen, there are other Māori and Treaty policy issues still ongoing. Those include the Government’s plans to vet the Treaty clauses in more than two dozen pieces of legislation and the coalition agreement commitment to reform the Waitangi Tribunal, which has been a scathing critic of the Government this year.

Plus, Ngarewa-Packer says, next year the effects of the Government’s policy decisions this year will start to show through. The repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, the removal of the Treaty clause from the Corrections Act, the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority, dictates about use of te reo in the public sector – all this and more will have flow-on impacts in 2025 and beyond.

“What we will spend a lot of next year doing is working with the communities to pull back what we’ve seen with the dismantling of everything Māori,” she says.

“We will see the manifestation of what they’ve dismantled actualising in 2025…. My prediction is, actually, 2025 is going to have to be even much more alive on those issues. And we will see the harm in stats coming out more in 2025 and in 2026.”