The party said their policy sets out a path from “kai dependency to kai sovereignty” and would deliver immediate cost-of-living relief by investing in M\u0101ori and community food production and ownership.<\/p>\n
The policy includes:<\/p>\n
– An “Income Tax Kai Credit” for people earning $60,000 or less valued at up to eight weeks of kai each year. The party estimates the credit will support 64% of the Aotearoa (3 million people) and cost $2.8 billion.<\/p>\n
– Establishing a M\u0101ori Kai Sovereignty Board with powers to address poverty and hunger.<\/p>\n
– Setting up a $100 million Community Kai Fund for home gardens, marae m\u0101ra kai and community farms and scholarships for rangatahi to study food sciences.<\/p>\n
– Invest $100m in M\u0101tai Ahuwhenua for whenua blocks to grow their own kai and work with councils to set aside more land for farms.<\/p>\n
– $100m in seed funding to set up M\u0101ori-owned supermarket chains and regenerative and organic farming training programmes.<\/p>\n
– Protect the whakapapa of kai by honour the findings of WAI 262, support M\u0101ori kai licensing and trademarks, develop a M\u0101ori Seed Conservation Strategy and oppose genetically engineered food.<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP for Hauraki-Waikato Hana-R\u0101whiti Maipi-Clarke said Aotearoa produces a huge amount of food but too many wh\u0101nau were struggling to put it on the table.<\/p>\n
“That is not a shortage of food. It is a failure of the system.”<\/p>\n
She said the party did not want people “permanently dependent” on food parcels or corporate-controlled food chains.<\/p>\n
![\"Te](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/hana-rawhiti-maipi-clarke-ZTTGM5VUN5GUFDXSLI773WNGOI.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP for Hauraki-Waikato Hana-R\u0101whiti Maipi-Clarke (Source: Te Karere)<\/p>\n
“We want wh\u0101nau growing kai, marae feeding communities, M\u0101ori producing kai, and our people owning more of the systems that distribute and sell it.<\/p>\n
“Afford the kai. Grow the kai. Own the system,” she said.<\/p>\n
A policy document released by Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori said Aotearoa needed sustainable ways to provide more food for everyone, while breaking the “stranglehold that monopolies have on food supply”.<\/p>\n
“We must return to our traditional practices and customs of gathering kai because our sustenance can no longer be in the hands of corporate-controlled food chains,” the document said.<\/p>\n
TVNZ has extensive coverage of the election campaign. (Source: TVNZ)<\/p>\n
The policy comes as other party’s pitch their own policies to break up the supermarket duopoly.<\/a><\/p>\n National and New Zealand First would breakup Foodstuffs<\/a>, the Greens would set up a government-owned supermarket chain<\/a> called KiwiMart<\/a>, and Labour would force Foodstuffs and Woolworths to run their wholesale operations independently.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori have unveiled their $3.1 billion plan for “kai sovereignty”, promising tax credits, a Community Kai…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138,144,4432,111,43,139,69,8027,270122],"class_list":["post-606981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-business","tag-food-drink","tag-maori-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-te-pati-maori","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606981","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=606981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}