John McLean: Root & Branch abandonment of.......roots

Dame Tariana Turia died on 3 January 2024, at 80 years of age after suffering a stroke. Her father was American (with, apparently, some Native American ancestry) and her mother had Māori ancestry. Turia chose to strongly identify with her Māori ancestry. Fair enough.

Turia entered New Zealand’s Parliament in 1996 as a Labour Party representative. She won the Te Tai Hauāuru (West Coast North Island) Māori electorate seat at the 2002 election, a Parliamentary seat she held until 2014, at first for the Labour Party and then for the Māori Party which she formed in 2004 in protest over then Prime Minister Helen Clark’s foreshore and seabed legislation. That controversial legislation extinguished the prospect of New Zealand’s activist Courts awarding people with Māori ancestors dominion over New Zealand’s foreshore and seabed.



Turia and the superb Sir Pita Sharples co-led the Māori Party from its inception. When they retired together from Parliament in 2014, quisling National Party MP Chris Finlayson exclaimed in Parliament:

"The Foreshore and Seabed Act is Helen Clark's legacy to New Zealand; its repeal is Tariana Turia's and I have to say that Mrs Turia is by far the greater politician."

Turia was possibly a greater politician than Finlayson, but not of course than the redoubtable Helen Clark. At Turia’s tangi Finlayson announced, “it’s no exaggeration to say I love her”. It’s rumoured the former Attorney General begged Turia to breastfeed him.

Current Te Pāti Māori a weird world away from Turia’s Māori Party

Back in 2001, Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First, called Turia a "Māori separatist" over Turia’s advocacy for a separate justice system for people like Turia with Māori ancestry. And it’s true that, from some things she said, Turia may have been an early victim/leader of the ahistorical cult preaching that there are people alive today, with Māori ancestry or some sort of Māori cultural affiliation, who comprise a separate race-based sovereign nation lurking somewhere within the geographical confines of New Zealand.


At Turia’s tangi, current Madhatter Māori Party leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawhiri Waititi portrayed themselves as heirs to Turia’s legacy. As carrying the flame that Turia had kindled. But Debbie and Rawhiri are an entirely different kettle of rotten fish, for the following essential reasons:

• Turia fought to enhance Māori self-determination/tino rangatiratanga (Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi) but not genuinely to end the current unitary New Zealand sovereign nation. D N-P and Waititi mock Parliament, spurn democracy and unashamedly wish to turn New Zealand into, or carve from it, a Māori Ethno-State.

• Turia was a pragmatist who instituted her changes using New Zealand’s democratic institutions and power structures. She was willing to comprise and form strategic alliances. She understood that real changes are only possible through legislation. Turia was therefore prepared to work within the system. On the other hand, Debbie and Rawiri unashamedly want to end the system, in favour of some race-based place they can’t define.

• Turia was sane, gracious, and humble. Racist Nazi ACT Leader David Seymour praised Turia at her tangi: “Turia was a warm, gracious woman and a brave, principled leader”. The current Te Pati Māori twosome are crazy, rude and egomaniacal. The Māori Party now claims to be “Progressive”, but there’s no prospect of genuine progress from these deranged, bitter, power-hungry, race hustler anarchists. ACT and NZ First have evolved into constructive, broad-based political parties. There are only so many New Zealanders who will support the Māori Party in is current incarnation. The Māori Party’s extremism is self-limiting. Only so many New Zealanders are genuine Nutbrowns.

Abolition of Māori seats?

One of my personal political aspirations is that, in the lead-up to the next election, the Māori Party will consistently poll over 5% (i.e. over a third of New Zealanders with Māori ancestry will support the Māori Party). That would give the current Government a worthy warrant to end - by a simple majority of votes in Parliament - the Māori seats in Parliament.

As a result of the Māori electorates, the Māori Party enjoys 5% of the seats in Parliament, despite having gained only 2.6% of the popular vote. And there is no longer any valid argument that the Māori electorates are required to ensure solid Māori presentation in Parliament. About 17% of New Zealanders identify as Māori, whereas 27.5% of seats in Parliament are occupied by Māori.

New Zealand’s mixed member proportional (MMP) form of Government is perfectly suited to cater for New Zealanders who prefer to fixate on real and imagined Māori ancestors. Chances of Prime Minister Luxon abolishing the Māori seats? - zero. Changes of Luxon getting ousted as National Party leader for not instituting meaningful democratic changes? – high.

Ancestor fixation drives you round the bend

I’ve just arrived back from holidaying in Mount Maunganui. A few years back I was fishing off Tauranga Harbour’s Pilot Bay wharf and got talking to a fisherman who appeared Māori. As I’m inclined to do – out of genuine interest, not courtesy – I ask about his Māori ancestry. He gave me a brief run down but then volunteered that he now prefers not to dwell on his ancestry. He explained that he had become fixated with his Māori ancestry and his fixation had wrecked his mental health.

The cure for the fisherman’s dark obsession came from a hitchhike. The fisherman hitched a ride with another man with Māori ancestry and proceeded to download, by customary rote, his Māori genealogy. The driver listened quietly. When the download was complete, the driver politely but firmly advised him “Don’t fixate on your ancestry. It’s a dead end that’ll do your head in”. The driver was writer Alan Duff. The fisherman took Duff’s advice and got on with life, well on his personal road to recovery.

As Clive James said, “History happened, and now we’re here”. No-one’s ancestors are special. Shit happens, and will always happen. While acknowledging and learning from the past, New Zealanders must live in the present and work together for a better future. Sadly, that’s the last thing the current Māori Party wants. The Māori Party wants the Māori general public to live in a perpetual state of victimhood, while elite political Māori continue to steam along on the grifty Race Gravy Train.

And the Greens could be worse…

When’s the last time the Greens said anything constructive about improving New Zealand’s natural environment? The Gaga Greens have abandoned any pretense of working constructively to improve Aotearoa’s flora and fauna, in full-scale favour of Whacky Wokery.

Unfortunately - despite being bonkers and completely useless – latest political polls indicate that over 10% of New Zealanders support the Greens. That’s democracy folks. Suck it up.

John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.