‘Have you understood?’ MPs asked at Waitangi

2026-02-05 - 09:58

The sun never quite rose on the political pōwhiri at Waitangi on Thursday, obscured behind clouds and a persistent drizzle for most of the time. However, neither that nor the threat of a coordinated protest to block access to Te Whare Rūnanga was enough to stop the annual pōwhiri for members of Parliament from taking place. Indeed, after the planned protest was reported on Wednesday, its organisers announced online that they had called it off at the behest of the hau kāinga, who had argued it would breach tikanga. A small group of protesters still showed up to perform their own haka and waiata during the wero and karanga. But despite the occasional interjection from a handful of hecklers, the environment was far less tense than in recent years. Last year, some hau kāinga turned their backs during Act Party leader David Seymour’s speech, iwi leader Aperahama Edwards twice confiscated Seymour’s microphone and ohters sang waiata to drown him out. The year before, the first Waitangi week after the coalition Government formed, Seymour’s speech was drowned out, NZ First leader Winston Peters was booed loudly and ministers were faced with protests described as “raucous” in the media. This time, the loudest reaction from the relatively small crowd of onlookers came when Prime Minister Christopher Luxon mentioned his Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, by name. Although he was discussing her work on structured literacy, it seems likely the reaction was to Stanford’s move to strip te reo Māori words from school readers and to remove the requirement for school boards to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi. Other than that, Luxon’s speech was relatively unremarked upon, besides a loud and persistent heckler. In it, he explained the three articles of the Treaty of Waitangi and laid out policies he said demonstrated the Government’s commitment to the Treaty – charter schools, iwi-led community housing projects, education reform and law and order. Christopher Luxon speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder If Luxon’s speech resembled, slightly, a campaign speech, he was not the only one there to politic. Speakers repeatedly referenced the Māori electorate, usually before going on to insist they were not there to win votes. Māori-Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka, for example, said he was there not to gain votes but because he had been invited. Responding to that, Green MP Teanau Tuiono in his own kōrero joked, according to the official translation, “Although [Potaka] said he didn’t come here to get any votes, I’m not here for votes but if you want to give your vote to me, I won’t reject that.” Teanau Tuiono speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder Labour leader Chris Hipkins acknowledged outgoing MP Peeni Henare, who announced on Tuesday he would be leaving politics before the election. Hipkins said it wasn’t easy to be a Māori MP, regardless of your party – a theme that was later repeated by Waihoroi Shortland in his powerful closing speech, when he told Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi that it was “crushing to see and hear what the House does [to you, to us, to the Māori people]”. Most of Hipkins’ speech centred on unity. He finished it by sharing a Cherokee tale about an elder who tells his grandson there are two wolves inside him – one filled with hatred, jealousy, envy, fear and vision, the other with unity, love, togetherness, compassion and kindness. Chris Hipkins speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder “The grandson says to his grandfather: ‘Which wolf will win?’ And the grandfather stops, puts a hand on his shoulder and says to him, ‘The wolf that will win is the wolf that you feed’. I’ve thought about that an awful lot since I read that,” Hipkins said. “I think that’s a really important question for us to ask as we cast our minds forward 14 years from now to those who will be gathering here on the bicentennial of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. What they celebrate is going to be determined by the wolf we to choose to feed.” Seymour’s speech focused on liberal democratic values, a common thread of his rhetoric at Waitangi and when speaking on Treaty issues. He also said he was “always amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and everything that’s happened in our country is all bad. The truth is that very few things are completely good or completely bad.” After the pōwhiri wrapped up, Seymour told reporters he believed colonisation had brought much more good than bad. David Seymour speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder “Well you only have to look at New Zealand as a success story. Even the poorest people in New Zealand today are living like kings and queens compared with most places and most times in history,” he said. Seymour was followed by Peters, who kept it relatively brief and insisted Waitangi should be apolitical, in response to a heckler. “We didn’t come here to be insulted. In fact, we didn’t come here to talk about politics. There’s 365 days a year – you got Easter, you got Christmas and you got Waitangi and perhaps that’s enough, right? The other 362-plus, you can spend on politics, but there’s some young pup out there shouting because he doesn’t know what day it is and back in the old times his elders would have told him to shut up and not be here,” he said. Winston Peters speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder Nonetheless, Peters went on to reference the coming election in his closing remarks. “I’ll make a statement to some of you who’ve made speeches today: There’ll come a time, and soon, when you’ll want to talk to me and my party far more than I’ll talk to you,” he said, prompting laughter from the hau kāinga. Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson spoke next, laying out the Greens’ history of standing up for Māori issues – including being the only party to join the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed march. She also said the Greens would be standing four Māori women in Māori seats. More photos from Thursday at Waitangi: Those were herself for Tāmaki Makaurau, Hūhana Lyndon in Te Tai Tokerau, lawyer Tania Waikato in Waiariki and Heather Te Au-Skipworth in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Skipworth in particular is an interesting choice – she was slated to stand in that seat for Te Pāti Māori in the 2023 election, before Labour’s Meka Whaitiri defected. Skipworth found herself bumped from the ballot by Whaitiri, who went on to lose the election. That reminder of minor Te Pāti Māori drama was well overshadowed by the ongoing saga involving Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi – expelled from the party last year, then reinstated by an interim court order. On Monday, further legal arguments in Kapa-Kingi’s case were heard. In his speech, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi struck a variously conciliatory and ambitious tone. He responded to the kōrero of Kapa-Kingi’s son, Eru, who had spoken for the hau kāinga and criticised Te Pāti Māori’s treatment of his mother (as well as Labour). Eru Kapa-Kingi speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder “Eru, I want to thank you for laying down what you said in the right place so that we are able to say these things, share these things, and I want to acknowledge that this is the right place to hold these discussions,” Waititi said, according to the official translation. He went on to say the Government could not be changed without Te Pāti Māori involved. During the haka that followed Waititi’s remarks, his wife Kiri Tamihere-Waititi (daughter of Te Pāti Māori President John Tamihere) approached the hau kāinga and Eru Kapa-Kingi in particular, gesturing towards him. As the haka ended, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi stood and told her, “Hoki atu”, meaning “go back”. Rawiri Waititi speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder Later, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi stood and made clear she was determined to content Te Tai Tokerau again – implicitly, even if she was no longer in Te Pāti Māori. “I am not going anywhere. I am completely and still dedicated to Te Tai Tokerau,” she said. Earlier in the day, Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris (who was expelled alongside Kapa-Kingi from Te Pāti Māori but who has not challenged it) confirmed he would stand for reelection in his seat as an independent in November. Perhaps the most impactful speech of the day, however, came at the conclusion of the pōwhiri. Ngāti Hine leader and former broadcaster Waihoroi Shortland stood to make an “assessment” of the speeches from ministers and party leaders. “You speak to me about understanding. I ask, have you understood? You speak to me of being a good New Zealander and that you proffer to me. In order to do that, I must deny that most important part of me, of being Māori, if I’m to run with everybody,” he said. As some ministers shook their heads in disagreement, he continued. “I can see the heads. I know. Because that’s what it feels like when you’re sitting on this side and trying to make sense of what’s coming from that side. I know it isn’t the intent. What I’m trying to speak to is what it makes us feel when something is put in that manner, that being Māori must be taking away from somebody else. Being Māori might be taken to [mean] being not a really good New Zealander.” Waihoroi Shortland speaks at Waitangi. Photo: Marc Daalder Shortland said the relationship with the Government might be difficult but it needed to be maintained. “I’m known to have said to our people on this side: If we don’t want to talk to the Crown, who can we talk to? The trees won’t give it back to us. The birds sing a lovely song, but we’re not on the same page. And for all of our ... differences, you are still my only haven to get resolution, whoever you may be,” he said. He wished he had a wand to remove party affiliations from all of the MPs so they would have to chart a path to the future together. “I look around and I see the young leaders who stand before you today. No matter what their footwear, they are our future. They will be standing here when my time is long gone. I might hope they might remember the bald-headed old man who stood here in 2026 and happened to be saying the same things [they’re] saying in 2040 and beyond, but that’s my only hope, because it’s the only thing I can leave with them.”