Candidate Kōrero: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Te Pāti Māori)

Words by Ethan Manera (he/him)

When it comes to Te Pāti Māori’s political ideology, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says it’s complicated. While the party was formerly “comfortable with National”, she says they now “lean left” in the “Western-centric sense”. But Ngarewa-Packer thinks they’re best described as simply “indigenous”.

“We are an indigenous movement. [...] We are the only party that believes in Māori.”

It was a hectic day when we visited Te Pāti Māori. Ngarewa-Packer’s co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, was suspended from Parliament for allegedly breaching a court suppression order while speaking in the house, leaving her to pick up all his responsibilities. But she isn’t bothered—“we dont give a shit”, she laughs. Despite the chaos, Ngarewa-Packer invited us to park up on her couch and chat about their goals and aspirations for the upcoming election.

Tax

Ngarewa-Packer says the main goal of Te Pāti Māori is to end poverty, proposing “a suite of policies” to do so.

She believes better things are possible for Aotearoa, but not without sweeping changes to the tax system. “We could be all living better, we could have free dental, we could have free health[care], we could be affording to live and put kai on the table, we could be affording our rents, we could afford to buy homes if we could flip everything upside down.”

Te Pāti Māori want to readjust all income tax thresholds to target higher income earners and fix what they call our “broken tax system”. Under this plan, workers will pay no tax on their first $30,000, and those earning above $300,000 pay 48% tax on income above this level. Ngarewa-Packer says this would see a tax cut for 90% of workers in Aotearoa and “shift the tax burden from the poor to the wealthy”.

They also want to remove GST off all food, calling it a regressive tax which impacts “lower income whānau who are forced to spend nearly every cent they earn”. This is in contrast to Labour’s policy, which would only see GST removed off fruit and vegetables.

Ngarewa-Packer says a wealth tax is also necessary to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. She wants to see a 2-8% tax on net wealth between $2-10 million. “It's not about being anti wealthy—it's just being anti a tax system that's been designed to keep the super-rich rich, and to keep everyone else and the struggling poor.”

Education:

While most of their education policy is focused on resourcing kaupapa Māori education and “overhauling the Pākehā mainstream system”, Ngarewa-Packer says that they also have some bold plans for supporting students in the tertiary education sector.

Te Pāti Māori want to scrap the living cost component of student loans in favour of a universal student allowance at double the current weekly rate. They also will offer free public transport for students, and work towards writing off all student debt for graduates who work in Aotearoa for five years after study.

Ngarewa-Packer, who is currently studying a PhD at Massey researching racism in New Zealand's Covid-19 response, says her drive to support students financially comes from her own experiences while studying. “I was broke in my era [...] so I don't know how the hell you guys all cope.”

“Education is the key to everything,” she says. “I’m the third generation born since the land confiscations in Taranaki. Education was hugely invested in my family to get us out of the pits of where we’d landed with the loss of all our economic base.”

Environment:

Ngarewa-Packer says alongside their main goal of ending poverty are their policies aimed at tackling the climate crisis and improving the environment. “[It's about] our environment, our taiao, and I believe that our taiao policy is second to none. And it's because it comes from within our puku; it’s our legacy, whether we like it or not.”

One of her main focuses this term has been her members bill which sought to ban seabed mining. The proposed law was voted down by both Labour, National, and ACT, meaning it did not progress in Parliament. “We've had that sitting around for about the last nine years,” she said, but they'll still be campaigning on it this election.

Te Pāti Māori also want to ban all fossil fuel exploration in Aotearoa, phase out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use on farms, and bring agricultural emissions into the ETS so polluters pay for their emissions.

Opponents and Coalition Negotiations

While Te Pāti Māori have formed a government with National in the past, both parties have ruled each other out this time round, with National calling Te Pāti Māori “racist”, and Te Pāti Māori labelling National and ACT a “coalition of colonisers”.

When asked who they would work with this time, Ngarewa-Packer joked that “ideally, we would be big enough to play by ourselves”, but acknowledged that Labour and the Greens would be likely partners.

When asked her thoughts on some of the other parties in the running, she didn't hold back, describing National as a “coalition of blueberries'', ACT as “a barrage of bigots that should be just stopped from coming through the front door if I were to run this country”, joked that NZ First “belong in the rest home”, and said Labour had “the biggest mandate and did the littlest with it”. She took a more tender-hearted approach to the Greens, who she said are “allies”.

While Ngarewa-Packer says their party is unapologetically Māori, she believes that Te Pāti Māori’s vision for Aotearoa will improve life for everyone. “To be honest, our goal is to advance all peoples. The issue that we have, and I know that some people don't like us saying this, is that we’re not even, and we need to even out the playing field.”