co-leader of the M\u0101ori Party in 2013<\/a>, as it was called then. In 2017, he lost the electorate to Labour\u2019s T\u0101mati Coffey, a defeat he said \u201chit me hard\u201d. <\/p>\n\u201cBut our members never left; our kaupapa remained strong; we simply had a holiday from the Beehive for three years before we returned.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing the 2017 election was difficult because so many hopes and dreams for the movement seemed to disappear overnight.\u201d <\/p>\n
Flavell was angry and sad \u2013 \u201cmostly because of what it meant to our pakeke [adults], the older ones who had stood by me through both the good and tough times\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat sense of whakam\u0101 [shame] kept me away from everything. I worried about seeing Whatarangi, Tariana [Turia] and others. I felt I had let them all down after all the mahi we had done together.\u201d <\/p>\n
The M\u0101ori Party of Flavell\u2019s era supported the National Party to form a minority Government when landmark initiatives like Wh\u0101nau Ora were developed. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose outcomes were achieved because our small party built a working relationship with larger parties.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cTuria, Sharples, Harawira, Flavell, Katene, Fox \u2013 were there fallouts at times? Of course, there were. It happens. Being in Parliament is high-pressure work with enormous expectations from our people, including those who didn\u2019t vote for us.\u201d <\/p>\n
But during those times, Whatarangi \u201chad a way of levelling us all out\u201d and \u201che always brought us back to what mattered most: the survival and wellbeing of M\u0101ori as a people\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI attended meetings with Prime Minister John Key and Deputy Prime Minister Bill English. Despite our political differences, we were always treated with respect. Those gains came because of relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"M\u0101ori]()
M\u0101ori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell with Prime Minister John Key before their confidence and supply talks at the Beehive in 2014. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
\u201cAt times, in the first few terms, we even played \u2018good cop, bad cop\u2019. Tariana and Pita used their influence as ministers to secure gains. Hone, Rahui and I challenged policies that would have a detrimental impact on our people. It worked. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe voted against many National Party policies because they did not align with our values. Did it damage our relationship with National? No. They understood that we would always stand for the rights of our people. Yet we still made progress.\u201d <\/p>\n
2023 election landslide<\/p>\n
Flavell said three years after his defeat in Waiariki to Coffey, John Tamihere took over as president and in 2023 the party went on to win a landslide six of the seven M\u0101ori seats. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was there in the hotel room in Rotorua in 2023 when the final results came through … It was an emotional moment for all of us in that room. <\/p>\n
\u201cWinning six of the seven M\u0101ori seats was a remarkable achievement, and full acknowledgment must be given to John Tamihere for that. In my 12 years in Parliament and across four campaigns, we did not achieve what he and his team did. It was a significant victory.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Te]()
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa Packer and Rawiri Waititi announcing the suspension of Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and T\u0101kuta Ferris for breaches of kawa. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
But, he said, M\u0101ori politics is unpredictable and can shift dramatically depending on what else is going on. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt Whatarangi\u2019s tangi, I said openly that I believed that the current M\u0101ori Party was very different from the one that Whatarangi, with the rest of us, built. I said the party had lost its way. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view, the party had moved away from the kaupapa, that is, how we conduct ourselves as M\u0101ori, how we would engage with others, and ultimately why we were there in the first place.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he shared the concerns of his people about the party\u2019s \u201cinfighting, the personal attacks, the inability to uphold tikanga, poor leadership … the constant accusations directed at one another and others\u201d. <\/p>\n
Bringing things back together would not be easy but he believed \u201call is not lost\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of what made our movement special has been lost, and our party risks being punished once again. <\/p>\n
\u201cI still believe all is not lost. Returning our party to the original kaupapa is critical. If our people were to see a style of leadership that reflects the original party values, I believe they would come home. That requires a change of leadership and approach. For our movement\u2019s sake, I hope it happens and happens soon.\u201d <\/p>\n
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Then-Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi (top right) sitting behind co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi during Question…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[534,5660,5842,115,12974,70554,10709,34749,19398,252094,2082,2740,164965,1043,5836,2720,111,43,139,69,1523,4762,7234,2730,46800,8244,8690,165,252093,14047],"class_list":["post-505471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amid","tag-attacks","tag-calling","tag-calls","tag-change","tag-coleader","tag-concerns","tag-conduct","tag-declaring","tag-flavell","tag-for","tag-former","tag-infighting","tag-leadership","tag-lost","tag-mori","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-party","tag-partys","tag-personal","tag-pti","tag-recent","tag-te","tag-their","tag-ururoa","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}