So what if TPM wants to organise a Māori Parliament?

Informal parliaments, congresses and assemblies are common and can be effective - if they have legitimacy.

PM Richard Seddon attending the sixth sitting of the Māori Parliament in 1897.

Te Pāti Māori has said it intended to set up a Māori Parliament as an alternative vehicle for the expression of political influence to the New Zealand Parliament. In response to this, I had quite a few calls and messages asking whether this was treasonous or - at the very least - seditious.¹ And for reasons I’ll get into it’s hard to see how they are.

Ultimately, however, I am just not sure why people feel the need to get so worked up about it.

Māori are entitled to the same aspirations of self-determination and to pursue those aspirations as any other people. Provided this occurs within the confines of the law, it’s just normal political activity. And what TPM want to do is not unprecedented here in New Zealand or overseas.

We had Te Kotahitanga in the late 19th century. This was a bicameral, Māori representative body constituted to address issues specific to Māori communities. It operated within a lawful framework, advocating for Māori rights and self-determination. Wi Pere, one of the great political figures of the age, was a member while also simultaneously being a Liberal Party member of the New Zealand Parliament.

Looking overseas, ethnic and tribal movements globally have frequently sought to establish their own parliaments and assemblies as representative bodies. The National Congress of American Indians was founded in 1944 to be a unified voice for Native American tribes in the United States, advocating for their rights and interests. Numerous tribes belong, including the Cherokee, Navajo, Sioux, and Apache because, while the NCAI does not possess legislative power, it helps those groups to represent their interests effectively within the larger political landscape.

What about the World Uyghur Congress? That’s another institution that holds no legislative or official power but which pushes for policy changes for the benefit of the Uyghur community. It draws its mandate from indirect elections held every three years across the Uyghur diaspora.

At a much more official end, we have the Sámi Parliament in Norway. This was established by the Norwegian government and promotes cultural preservation, language rights and development within Sámi territories. It’s elected every four years by those on Norway’s Sámi electoral roll.

Of course, what Te Pāti Māori has proposed is not happening with the consent of the New Zealand government, which will pose challenges in demonstrating democratic legitimacy. Despite receiving more party votes than ever in the last election, supporters of the party remain a small proportion of the roughly one million people who identify as Māori. Consequently, TPM's claim to an implicit mandate is weaker than the party and much of the news media tend to suggest.

It’s always worth remembering that the very cabinet that TPM figures accuse of wishing to exterminate Māori is itself 40% Māori in composition.² Indeed, the overall caucuses of the government parties have close to 20% Māori membership - basically in line with the overall population. So the idea that TPM and other leftwing parties have some sort of exclusive insight has always been something of a media fiction - though the party is as free to put its viewpoints forward just as all others are.

That includes setting up representative bodies, which TPM is as welcome to try doing as anyone else is. That freedom does not oblige the New Zealand government to recognise such a body, of course, much less fund it. Nor does it compel ordinary people to take any notice of it should they consider it to lack political legitimacy.

This is all about freedom of expression, association and assembly. And we must make a broad allowance for those things when they touch on the political in particular. But there are limits.

We should rebuke and, if necessary, suppress advocacy or incitement to violence, rebellion against the lawful government or the promotion of illegal activities. Short of legal consequences, any movement seeking to undermine the democratic process or to destabilise basic social order also crosses a red line. Political activity must be pursued within a framework of legal and peaceful advocacy.

Here is what Te Pāti Māori actually said. There is no advocacy for violence. There is no incitement to rebellion. There is no call for anarchy and the upending of social order to overthrow the rule of law by means of force.

The latter day trajectory of TPM has been disappointing. There seems to have been a turn to extreme rhetoric that has now become something of an addiction leading to an overreliance.

In previous years, most journalists have been too sympathetic or scared of the party to give it critical coverage, but there seems to be less willingness for that now. Especially if the whiff of impropriety continues to intensify.

If that’s the case, Te Pāti Māori may need to moderate its rhetoric to sustain its efforts. And a failure to do so will likely undermine its cause more than overwrought accusations of treason or sedition will.

So, once again, everyone needs to just calm down a bit.

1. Treason is a crime while seditious offences have largely been repealed from the law (which doesn’t make sedition morally right, of course).

2. Also worth noting that Te Pāti Māori accused Jacinda Ardern’s government of genocide too. Twice, actually.