Govern with Te Pati Māori? The dilemma Labour’s grappling with

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

The Tāmaki Makaurau by-election laid plain some stark differences between Labour and Te Pāti Māori. And it’s forcing Labour to confront an elephant in the room: can it govern effectively with Te Pāti Māori at the same table? Is that what’s putting off swing voters? And it begs the question: Does Te Pāti Māori even want to be in government or does it want to remain being the anti-establishment activists agitating from the cross benches? Lloyd Burr explains.

ANALYSIS: When Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris attacked “Indians, Asians, Black, and Pakeha” who were campaigning for Labour in Tāmaki Makaurau, it triggered something in Labour.

They’d always known Te Pāti Māori pushed the boundaries when it came to advocating for Māori, but Ferris’ low-blow race-baiting crossed the line and it was deeply felt across the party.

Labour MPs, staffers, volunteers, and supporters were angry. They were disappointed. They couldn’t believe a party built on the marginalisation of one ethnic group would attack other marginalised ethnic groups in such an underhanded way.

Ferris’ post featured another barb too. It said Henare winning would take a Māori seat away from Māori - referring to Labour’s Georgie Dansey, the candidate next on the party’s list who would’ve entered Parliament.

Those comments had been said earlier on the campaign by Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi and his wife Kiri Tamihere-Waititi (daughter of party president John Tamahiri).

Why did those comments hurt? Because Dansey is Māori. She’s Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Te Pāti Māori were openly questioning her Māori-ness. Like many Māori in her generation, she wasn’t brought up immersed in her culture - instead, she discovered and reconnected to her whakapapa later in life.

Labour’s hurt was still raw at Henare’s by-election party on Saturday night, not just among the supporters, but with Henare himself.

His concession speech was littered with messages clearly directed at Te Pāti Māori’s behaviour.

“I am so proud of all of our volunteers. Some might slander and some might denigrate them. But I want to be very clear. In this waka, you are all welcome. All shapes, all sizes, all races, all creeds,” he told party faithful, in reference to Ferris’ comments.

“Others, when they go low, we go high. We need to say and remind all our people that politics is far better than the gutter people take it to.”

Henare then turned to Dansey, who’d made the trip to Auckland from Hamilton.

“I want to acknowledge Georgie Dansey, because Georgie, you are enough. Don’t you let any Māori denigrate your whakapapa or who you are.

“If I were to have won tonight, we would have brought in another strong Māori wahine and I believe that today,” Henare said.

As the evening wore on, many conversations among those gathered at Henare’s party were about a decision that’s looming large for Labour: Can we sit at the same Cabinet table with Te Pāti Māori or should we rule them out?

By not ruling it out, Labour opens itself to attack from other parties that the only way it can get into government is with Te Pāti Māori’s support.

National, New Zealand First and ACT will paint a picture of chaos, instability, radicalism, unpredictability, and separatism. And Labour will be tarred with that brush until they un-hitch their wagon from Te Pāti Māori’s.

Until they do draw a line in the sand, swing voters who abandoned Labour at the 2023 election are unlikely to swing back if they know Te Pāti Māori holds Labour’s key to the Beehive.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins is still avoiding the question though: “We'll set that out much closer to the election,” he said when Stuff asked him yesterday.

What did he make of Te Pāti Māori’s behaviour? “The Labour Party is a party for every New Zealander. We are a very inclusive party. The Māori Party statements are something they should be questioned on. We're not responsible for the statements they make,” he said.

But already Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is using it to paint a picture of a chaotic alternate government.

“The takeaway from that by-election result is that Te Pāti Māori will have huge influence on the Labour Party.

“When you think about Chris Hipkins sitting down with [Green co-leaders] Marama [Davidson] and Chloe [Swarbrick] and [Te Pāti Māori co-leaders] Rawiri [Waititi] and Debbie [Ngarewa-Packer], that’s going to be quite an interesting set of conversations around the Cabinet table if that was ever to happen,” he says.

Another problem for Labour is the way Te Pāti Māori deals with the scrutiny that comes with being in politics: they blacklist journalists and media organisations who ask hard questions and who don’t give them an easy ride.

The party often only allows ‘Māori media’ to attend its events, and not ‘Pakeha media’. This happened to me in 2023 when I wanted to interview Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke after she claimed a National Party supporter turned up at her house to verbally abuse her. But I was denied because the press conference was “for Māori media only”.

This by-election has been no different. Despite its candidate Oriini Kaipara working for TVNZ and Newshub as a journalist and newsreader, they closed the door on the mainstream media and rewarded those who they believed towed the party line.

Only a select few journalists were invited to Kaipara’s function on Saturday night. Everyone else was snubbed, and some even banned including Māori journalists like TVNZ’s Maiki Sherman and RNZ’s Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira.

Ngarewa-Packer is defending the party’s actions, posting a message on her Facebook page.

“During the by-election campaign we experienced predatory media behaviour. Reporters pouncing out of bushes, hidden camera ppl, turning up to kura without whānau knowledge or permission, creating alarm at malls, chasing us into lifts, even today screaming at us why wont we allow interviews, filming it to heighten the drama for their 6pm viewership,” she wrote.

Stuff has asked Te Pāti Māori for more context on those allegations, and which reporters and outlets were involved. They are yet to respond.

Ngarewa-Packer’s post continues:

“We chose not to engage with mainstream tabloid aggression because protecting our MPs, candidates, and whānau always comes first. That decision as they’d been told numerous times stands until we sit down.

“I refuse to allow them to use their media platform to demonise us, this was never about avoidance, or transparency! It’s simple, we will never ever compromise the safety of our whānau,” Ngarewa-Packer writes.