Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer sit down laughing. He holds a glass with a thick finger of whisky, she a handful of cheese sticks. Asked if they’re celebrating, Waititi chuckles: no. If anything, they say, it’s the small victory of getting through a Wednesday in parliament. Their office is hung with a striking red and black painting. “We will not be silenced,” it reads. “We will not be assimilated.”
The pair seem in good spirits, and with reason. The party has undergone a fairly radical change in fortunes. In 2017, after three terms spent in government as part of a confidence and supply coalition with National, it failed to win a seat or send a representative into parliament – a result most commentators read as punishment from voters for years spent compromising with a centre-right government. It’s a fate small parties rarely recover from. “Every political pundit, every political algorithm said we were goneskies,” says Waititi. Against the odds, the party won back a seat from a wave of Labour victories in the last election, with fresh leadership promising an unapologetic voice for Maori. Asked for their greatest achievements of the last term, making it back is the first thing they cite.
