By Mihingarangi Forbes & Annabelle Lee-Mather of RNZ
Te Pāti Māori’s leadership isn’t trusted by nearly half of Māori voters and many would prefer Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to take over, a new poll suggests.
Almost half of those surveyed in the Mata-Horizon Research poll believe the party is heading in the wrong direction, and more than 65% indicated the recent problems were an important consideration in deciding their vote.
But the results also show there’s still a desire from voters for the party to remain in Parliament.
The poll was commissioned as part of a Mata Reports examination of the ructions in the party this year, Te Pāti Māori: A Kaupapa in Crisis.
Since June, Te Pāti Māori has been beset by a series of setbacks, including allegations and counter-allegations between MPs and the leadership, culminating in the expulsion of Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākura Ferris from the party. An interim order of the High Court has restored Kapa-Kingi’s membership pending a full hearing next year.
Two former insiders have spoken out to Mata Reports, criticising the current leadership team and calling for a return to the kaupapa envisioned when the party was founded in 2004.
“Those principles, the tikanga that was established, weren’t just about being words on a paper, they were the values by which we were expected to not only reflect the political aspirations of our people but how we would behave,” says founding member Amokura Panoho.
She believes changes made to the constitution in 2023 saw authority shift from the membership to the executive of the party.
“I think that that’s concerning and it has led to a lot of the conflict that we have watched unfold. There’s a particular style of leadership that is inconsistent with the principles of the party.”
Former policy director Jack Tautokai McDonald said the party has done “amazing work” since it returned to Parliament in 2020.
“But I feel like that is now all at risk because of the debacle over the last few months. And I think that increasingly they are betraying the hopes and aspirations of those who put them there.”
Mata Reports invited party president John Tamihere to be interviewed for the story but he declined.
The Mata-Horizon Research Poll surveyed 328 Māori from December 4-12, and has a margin of error of ±5.4%. Respondents were a mixture of people on the Māori and general electoral rolls.
Asked how much trust they had in the current leadership team, 47% of respondents said “not much” or “none”. Another 26% said they had “some”, while 18% said “a lot” and 9% said “don’t know”.
Almost half of those surveyed – 47% – said the party was heading in the wrong direction, 33% said it was going in the right direction and about one-fifth said they didn’t know.
When it came to a preferred leader, Maipi-Clarke came out on top with 19%. The Hauraki-Waikato MP, the youngest in Parliament, was recently named by Time magazine as one of the world’s most influential rising stars.
Next highest in the poll was co-leader Rawiri Waititi (12%), just ahead of Ferris, on 11%. Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on 7%, Kapa-Kingi was on 6%, Tamihere on 5%, and new Tāmaki Makaurau MP Oriini Kaipara on 3%. Another 37% answered “don’t know” or “other”.
The party won six of the seven Māori electorate seats at the last election, and was riding high in the polls at the start of this year, thanks in part to the surge in support for the party-backed Toitū Te Tiriti movement that opposed the Treaty Principles Bill.
However, the poll suggests the infighting has done significant damage to the party and could influence voter choices at next year’s election.
Asked how important recent problems were when it came to deciding their vote, 67% said “very” or “somewhat” important. Some 27% said “not very important” or “not important at all”. Only 6% said “don’t know”.
Te Pāti Māori has historically won most of its seats in Parliament by winning Māori electorates, which are voted on by people on the Māori electoral roll.
In the poll, 71% of respondents who said they had supported a Te Pāti Māori candidate in 2023 said they were “very likely” or “likely” to vote that way again if an election was held tomorrow. Only 16% said they were “unlikely” and none said they were “very unlikely”.
Support for the party based on the party vote also appears to be holding up, according to the poll. Labour had 28% support in the poll, compared with 31% it won with Māori electoral roll voters in 2023. Te Pāti Māori also had 28% support in the poll, though this was better than the 23% it got from Māori roll voters at the last election.
Political scientist Lara Greaves, an associate professor of politics at Victoria University, said the party’s pathway to stability and capitalising on the support it had was unclear.
“I don’t know where things can go from here and how they can bounce back.”
She said the split with the Toitū Te Tiriti movement was particularly damaging because it risked the party losing the support of rangatahi and young voters.
“It’s hard to motivate people to come out to vote when you see all of this drama,” Greaves said.
“I can’t necessarily see people feeling hopeful and positive about the future in Te Pāti Māori at this point in time … especially those younger Māori voters.”
She said the party had been one of the most successful indigenous political groups in the world, and an inspiration to movements globally.
“To see this happen and see this rupture happen in such a spectacularly messy fashion, it’s pretty disappointing.”
Despite the troubles, though, Panoho believed in the party’s future.
“The Māori Party was born through courage,” she said.
“If we return to honesty, integrity and collective leadership, our movement will recover its mana. My job has been, in terms of talking through these issues with you today, to help steady the kaupapa so that our young ones can come along, pick up the hoe and take our waka forward.”
– RNZ