Māori Economic Development

The Policy: TPM Economic Development Policy — 2023 Election →

Pitched as a root-and-branch reimagining of who holds economic power in Aotearoa, Te Pāti Māori's Māori economic development platform rests on the principle that "Māori prosperity cannot rely on permission from systems built to exclude us." The policy suite — spanning tax reform, Māori-led enterprise, data sovereignty, and food security — is the party's answer to a persistent gap: Māori make up roughly 17% of New Zealand's population but earn less than 9% of national income, and Māori GDP per capita sits about 50% below the non-Māori average.

What it does

Tax redistribution to shift wealth

• In July 2023 co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer announced a sweeping tax package modelled to raise a net $16.4 billion annually. Key planks: a tax-free threshold on the first $30,000 of income (zero rate); new brackets topping out at 48% on income over $300,000; a net wealth tax of 2% on assets over $2 million, 4% over $5 million, and 8% over $10 million (projected to raise $23 billion); corporate tax lifted from 28% to 33%; a 33% land-banking tax on undeveloped land held for four-plus years (with Māori freehold land explicitly exempted); and a vacant-house tax of 33% on properties untenanted for more than six months.
• Under their modelling, a person on $60,000 would keep an extra $6,520 per year, while a person on $90,000 would keep $6,220 more — the party claims 98% of earners would be net better off.
• $500 million would be directed to tax enforcement agencies (the Serious Fraud Office and IRD), on the premise that roughly $7 billion in tax goes uncollected annually.

GST off kai

• A member's bill drawn from the ballot in February 2024 would remove the 15% GST from all food and non-alcoholic beverages — costing the Crown an estimated $3.4 billion per year in lost revenue. Waititi framed it as giving whānau "seven weeks of free food a year." The bill came to a first reading in March 2024 but was defeated 117 votes to 6, opposed by National, ACT, NZ First, and Labour.
• A subsequent petition gathered 20,000 signatures but stalled when Waititi failed to file a written submission to a parliamentary select committee in September 2025.

Māori enterprise and data sovereignty

• The party's current policy platform commits to building "Māori-led institutions and funds that grow Māori enterprise," supporting "trade, innovation, and long-term Māori wealth building," and protecting indigenous data through data sovereignty frameworks. Co-leader Ngarewa-Packer has highlighted social procurement — directing government contracts preferentially toward Māori-owned businesses — as a "game changer."
• The party advocates for whānau-first food systems, Māori-owned supermarkets, and regenerative Māori agriculture to break corporate supply-chain dependency.

The Māori economy backdrop

• According to the Te Ōhanga Māori 2023 report published by MBIE/BERL, the Māori economy's GDP contribution grew from $17 billion (6.5% of national GDP) in 2018 to $32 billion (8.9%) in 2023. The Māori asset base surged from $69 billion to $126 billion over the same period — exceeding earlier $100 billion-by-2030 projections — and there are now nearly 24,000 Māori-owned businesses, with a 49% rise in Māori self-employment since 2018.

The result

The tax package as announced in 2023 was never legislated: Te Pāti Māori did not enter government after the October 2023 election and sits in opposition. The GST food bill's parliamentary defeat by 117 votes to 6 demonstrated the party's limited traction with other parties on fiscal policy. Critics include Chris Bishop (National's campaign chair), who called the 2023 plan a "radical high-tax agenda" that would "send a wrecking ball through New Zealand's economy," and ACT leader David Seymour, who argued the 8% top wealth-tax rate — "more than double the highest comparable wealth tax" anywhere — would leave "literally no reason to invest in New Zealand." Callum Purves of the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union argued the proposals "come from a place of fundamental misunderstanding of economics and incentives," and highlighted that GST removal disproportionately benefits higher-spending households in absolute dollar terms, a finding corroborated by the independent Tax Working Group.

Supporters counter that standard economic models fail to price in the social deprivation cost — estimated by analysts at around $8 billion annually — that flows from persistent Māori income and wealth gaps. The Spinoff's 2024 analysis of Māori sovereign wealth proposals noted that capital-access barriers remain structural: banks routinely price Māori freehold land as higher risk, compressing investment capacity even as the overall Māori asset base grows strongly.

*Neutrality note: This policy has constitutional and racial dimensions. All positions above are attributed to named sources; no group is characterised pejoratively in the editors' own voice.*

The impacts to watch

• Coalition leverage in 2026: Te Pāti Māori has signalled it will contest all seven Māori electorates in the 2026 election; should it gain enough seats to be a kingmaker, wealth-redistribution and Māori enterprise policy may return to the negotiating table.
• Māori asset base momentum vs. inequality: The Te Ōhanga Māori data shows collective iwi assets booming, but critics (including the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa) note aggregate growth masks continuing income inequality at the individual whānau level.
• Data sovereignty and procurement: Māori data sovereignty frameworks and social procurement policies could shift government contracting patterns significantly without requiring legislation, making them lower-friction policy levers.
• GST food reform public support: With 76% public support in polling and a 20,000-signature petition, the removal of GST from food remains politically live — Labour included partial removal (fruit and vegetables) in its 2023 platform — meaning Te Pāti Māori's advocacy may outlast the bill's defeat.