In Memoriam: Dame Tariana Turia

1944 - 2025

I have met a lot of politicians over the years. I never met Dame Tariana Turia. I really admired her, however, and believe her to be one of the most admirable politicians of our lifetime.

Her decision to resign from the Labour Party in 2004 over the Foreshore and Seabed Act remains her defining moment. It was an act of political principle, even if there may have been some personal bitterness that arose from the circumstances. Turia saw the law as an affront to the dignity of her people.

Her departure from Labour and her re-election under the banner of the newly formed Te Pāti Māori¹ allowed her to secure its eventual scrapping and this should be considered her signature political achievement.

Dame Tariana’s political career was not without blemish. Her comparison of New Zealand’s colonial history to the Holocaust was unfortunate - and an example of her tendency to let passion override prudence. She was heavily criticised for this, however, by both the media and her own party.

She weathered the storm.

It is very telling that members of the party she founded get a much easier time of it. Te Pāti Māori regularly makes much more outlandish and offensive accusations of government genocide than Turia ever did² with little in the way of substantive or sustained media criticism. Not only does the media shy away from challenging questions when this happens, but even the Labour MPs are much more hesitant to criticise such rhetoric than they were with Turia when she was a member of their party.

It is a more or less an open secret that editors, journalists and interviewers are, as a rule, fearful of being called out by TPM and tend to pull their punches as a result. This has emboldened party members and activists who now say things that could never have said. It is worth wondering whether they would be quite so bold if they had to face the same scrutiny Turia withstood in her day.

Dame Tariana Turia was not perfect in her public life because she was human being with strong feelings. She was a human being with strong feelings also guided by her conscience, however, and that is what set her apart from so many of her contemporaries and successors.

TPM won its first four seats in the 2005 election and added its fifth in 2008. The party then went on to forge a working relationship with the incoming National government which yielded concrete results while exposing its MPs to the difficulties of small-party incumbency. By 2017, the last of its seats was lost and the party was out of Parliament.

The first wave of TPM leaders then resigned and the party came under new management. Over the last five years, TPM has become much more radical and uncompromising, shifting away from the pragmatic approach that defined its earlier years. The party now appears to be effectively led from outside Parliament by Turia’s former Labour colleague John Tamihere, who serves as its president.

This is the same John Tamihere, of course, who bent the knee to Helen Clark by voting for the Foreshore and Seabed Act in 2004.³

It is a historical irony that someone who once backed the legislation that led to Turia’s resignation and the founding of TPM now occupies a central leadership role within the party. It is a double irony that Tamihere, who once stood on the opposite side of one of the defining moments in Māori political activism, now presides over a party that has embraced a far more radical and confrontational approach than Turia did.

While Turia's leadership was rooted in principled resistance and constructive negotiation, Tamihere’s leadership has been marked by an embrace of the party of a rhetorical style and political strategy that often seem designed to inflame rather than unite.

Coming back to the foreshore and seabed, the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act is almost certainly not the replacement that Dame Tariana Turia would have envisioned if left entirely to her own preferences. The Supreme Court's decision late last year highlighted the law's limitations, which may have been a source of disappointment for her at the end of her life.

However, I think that Turia understood that true empowerment begins with trust and that Māori self-determination requires more than just rhetoric—it demands resources, partnerships, and practical action. She recognised the necessity of collaborating with the National Party, which has historically been the dominant party of New Zealand government.

Turia did not have a choice between the Foreshore and Seabed Act or her perfect alternative. Politics rarely offers such clear-cut options. Instead, she was faced with a decision between imperfect realities: accepting a flawed compromise or walking away with nothing. Turia chose to engage, understanding that progress often requires working within constraints to achieve tangible results.

By forging that relationship with National, she not only advanced tangible outcomes for Māori but also played a significant role in relegating the divisive legacy of the Orewa Speech to history.