Matua Kahurangi: Te Pāti Māori: Too busy crying over Gaza to care about murdered Māori kids

When Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi were suspended from Parliament for 21 days last week, I was looking forward to the break. A full three weeks without the two scribble-faced co-offenders staging another headline-grabbing tantrum sounded like bliss. Unfortunately, the New Zealand media just couldn’t help themselves. Once again, these two were centre stage, this time inserting themselves into an international incident like they’re running the United Nations.

Te Pāti Māori has taken it upon themselves to condemn the Israeli navy’s armed interception of the Madleen - a luxury yacht carrying food, medical supplies, and international activists headed to Gaza, including the globalist puppet Greta Thunberg. Greta’s now on a yacht to Gaza, and Debbie’s all over it like a bad case of gonorrhea.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer took to social media with her usual flair for melodrama:

“This is not an arrest, it is an abduction. We have grave concerns for the safety of the crew. Israel have proven time again they aren’t above committing violence against civilians.”

She followed it up with even more hysteria:

“Blocking baby formula and prosthetics while a people are deliberately starved is not border patrol, it is genocide.”

Cue the righteous demands to the New Zealand Government:

• Demand the release of all crew

• Demand safe passage of aid into Gaza

• Call Israel’s actions genocide

• Sanction Israel for crimes against humanity

Te Pāti Māori is a political party, unfortunately, elected to represent New Zealanders, not moonlight as a fringe international aid NGO. I honestly would have thought that statement would have come from Chlöe Swarbrick or her Mexican amigo. While TPM are up on their soapbox accusing Israel of war crimes, where is the outrage, or even acknowledgement, of what’s happening to Māori children here at home?

Māori babies are being abused, neglected, and killed in this country with alarming frequency. It’s not baby formula being blocked - it’s safety, opportunity, and accountability. And it’s not a foreign military doing the damage, it’s the very communities Te Pāti Māori claim to stand for. Instead of addressing this uncomfortable truth, they point their finger-guns overseas and pretend to be freedom fighters on the world stage.

Te Pāti Māori needs to stop trying to cosplay as international revolutionaries and start confronting the hard, ugly truths at home. While you're crying about Gaza, another Māori child is being laid to rest. And no amount of media stunts or political grandstanding will bring them back.

Maybe it’s time to clean up your own backyard before you try saving the world.

Kāti Te Kōhuru Tamariki
Matua Kahurangi
· 2 Jun

The other day, I wrote again about the silence. The silence that follows the murder of a Māori child. The silence that echoes louder than any tangi, deeper than any haka of protest. For a long time, there has been no collective outrage, no public movement to confront the violence inflicted on our tamariki in Aotearoa.

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Matua Kahurangi is just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes. He blogs on https://matuakahurangi.com/ where this article was sourced.