Te Pāti Māori's leaders say Budget 2024 has little for their people, backing this up with a declaration of independence

Te Pāti Māori has dismissed the coalition government's budget as doing little for its people, saying it's based on an assumption of authority not justified by the Treaty of Waitangi. 

At the same time, the party issued a Declaration of Political Independence, ’Te Ngākau o Te Iwi Māori’, which it has asked all people to sign.

This declaration would lead to a separate parliament for Te Iwi Maori, which it says would respect Tino Rangatiratanga, as established by Article Two of the Treaty. 

In the meantime, Maori should get access to funding from state taxes equivalent to their numbers. 

The party’s co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, says the declaration comes on a sad day for Maori, with Maori institutions facing budget cuts, including Te Puni Kokiri, the Maori Climate Change Initiative and the Jobs for Nature programme. 

“We have lost over $300 million (from the budget), so yes, it’s a very bleak day,” she told reporters. 

“But tens of thousands have risen today [Thursday], and said it is unacceptable, and they will push back,” Ngarewa-Packer said, referring to mass hikoi in many parts of New Zealand in protest at both the Budget and other actions by the Government since it was formed last November. 

“We knew this was going to be a privileged budget and that’s what we got.”

Her co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, told reporters parliament has been exploiting his people and stealing their land for 180 years.

“And now, it is time for the remodelling, now is the time to say enough is enough. We have had enough. We will establish our own parliament, which will be anchored in our own Tino Rangatiratanga, focused on Mokopuna livelihood." 

It was not made clear where or when this new parliament would sit, but in the meantime, both he and Ngarewa-Packer would continue to sit in the existing parliament. Waititi also made clear the allocation of resources made in the latest budget was unacceptable. 

“If we are a million people, we are 20% of this country’s population, so we should get 20% of the Budget. It’s as simple as that,” Waititi says.

“If we are 50% of the male prison population, we should get 50% of that budget.  If we are 64% of the female prison population, we should get 64% of their budget.

"You can’t have a government that has for over 180 years inflicted colonial violence and harm and trauma on our people, created all this into generational trauma, and then have the cheek to think they can rehabilitate us. This is the irony – there will never be solutions coming from this space."

“We see this (declaration) as transformation, we see this as a natural progression of our own self development and our own self-determination," says Waititi.

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