Mana Motuhake — Te Pāti Māori's Treaty Constitutional Change Platform

The Policy: TPM Mana Motuhake Policy — 2023 Election →

Pitched as a fundamental rebalancing of power between the Crown and Māori, Te Pāti Māori's Mana Motuhake platform calls for constitutional transformation grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi — pursuing Māori self-determination, not as an incremental reform but as a shift in the architecture of governance itself.

Neutrality note: This policy addresses constitutional, Treaty, and co-governance matters that are actively contested across the political spectrum. All positions below are attributed to named parties.

What it does

Te Pāti Māori's Mana Motuhake platform encompasses several interlocking constitutional and governance proposals:

• Te Tiriti-based constitutional change: The party's Mana Motuhake policy commits to constitutional transformation ensuring that Māori gains "cannot be reversed by successive governments." The Matike Mai report (2012–2015), led by Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu and informed by more than 250 hui with over 10,000 people, provides the conceptual blueprint — exploring constitutional arrangements that honour both Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga.
• Parliamentary Commissioner for Te Tiriti o Waitangi ("Tiriti veto"): On 4 February 2025 at Waitangi, co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer announced a proposed Parliamentary Commissioner for Te Tiriti o Waitangi — an independent officer with powers to audit all proposed legislation, compel Crown compliance with Treaty obligations, and effectively block legislation inconsistent with Te Tiriti. Ngarewa-Packer stated this commissioner would be "critical to ensuring we never have uncertainty and division." The party named it a bottom-line in any future coalition negotiation.
• Waitangi Tribunal — binding recommendations: Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris introduced a members' bill on 30 July 2024 — the Treaty of Waitangi (Empowerment of Waitangi Tribunal) Amendment Bill — to make Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown. Currently, the Tribunal's findings are advisory only; the bill would also allow the Tribunal to review all proposed legislation for Treaty consistency.
• Māori Parliament: Te Pāti Māori has proposed a Māori Parliament, drawing on the Matike Mai report's constitutional models. Co-leader Ngarewa-Packer emphasised it remained "underdeveloped" and should spark nationwide debate before any parliamentary action, describing it as what co-governance "should have been had the Tiriti been honoured."
• Entrench Māori electorates: The party supports legislation — alongside the Green Party — to entrench the seven Māori electorates behind a 75% parliamentary supermajority to prevent abolition. In July 2025, Te Pāti Māori filed High Court proceedings alleging Māori voters were removed from the Māori roll without consent.
• Land return and rangatiratanga: The party advocates transferring all Crown land to iwi, ending perpetual leases, and creating a right of first refusal for iwi on all private land sales. In 2026, the Conservation Amendment Bill has heightened these concerns, with critics arguing it would place conservation lands further from mana whenua reach.
• Republic and name change: Since 2022, the party has called for removing the British monarchy as head of state and officially renaming the country Aotearoa, with a petition gathering over 70,000 signatures by June 2022.

The result

The policy suite remains entirely unlegislated under the current National-ACT-NZ First coalition government, which is philosophically opposed to most of these proposals. The Treaty Principles Bill — ACT's counter-proposal to redefine Treaty principles — was decisively voted down 112 to 11 in April 2025, suggesting Parliament's appetite for Treaty-redefining legislation is limited in either direction. Te Pāti Māori won six of the seven Māori electorates and 3.08% of the party vote at the 2023 election, providing a strong mandate for this platform among Māori voters — though the party's influence in opposition is constrained.

The November 2024 Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti, drawing an estimated 100,000 people to Wellington, demonstrated broad public engagement with Treaty rights beyond Te Pāti Māori's base. Yet the party has faced significant internal turbulence through 2025, with two MPs ousted, described by The Spinoff as having been "riven by infighting" that dissipated momentum from the hikoi.

Named critics: ACT leader David Seymour said the Tiriti Commissioner proposal showed Te Pāti Māori "don't support rule by elected Parliament." Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Labour "wouldn't support a parliamentary commissioner with a veto that would allow them to overturn... laws made by the parliament," though he remained open to better Treaty "checks and balances." The late constitutional scholar Moana Jackson, sympathetic to Māori self-determination, was nonetheless sceptical that "Parliament is not a rangatiratanga house, it's a kāwanatanga house."

Named supporters: Co-leaders Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer have framed mana motuhake as restoring what was promised in 1840. Amokura Panoho (former TPM national secretary) argued Māori "needed our own political vehicle to protect our whenua, our moana and our mokopuna."

The impacts to watch

• 2026 election leverage: If left-of-centre parties perform well, Te Pāti Māori's stated coalition bottom-lines — Treaty commissioner and Treaty protection — could convert into genuine negotiating currency for the first time since 2023.
• Māori electorates fate: New Zealand First is actively campaigning for a referendum to abolish the seats; the Green Party's entrenchment bill and TPM's legal challenge represent the counter-push — the outcome will shape Māori political representation for decades.
• Conservation estate: The 2026 Conservation Amendment Bill is testing rangatiratanga over ancestral land in real time; critics argue the bill's "consult but ignore" clause leaves Crown power intact while mana whenua bear the consequences.
• Institutional legitimacy debate: The unresolved question — whether parliamentary participation can deliver tino rangatiratanga or inherently compromises it — will continue to shape TPM's strategy and its relationship with more radical Māori sovereignty advocates.