Te Pāti Māori, also known as the Māori Party, is a political party in New Zealand advocating indigenous rights. It contests the specially reserved Māori electorates, in which its main rival is the Labour Party. Under the current leadership of Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, it promotes the following policies: the upholding of tikanga Māori, the dismantling of systemic racism, and the strengthening of the rights and tino rangatiratanga promised in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The party is also committed to a mixture of socially progressive and green policy through a "Tiriti-centric" lens. This includes eradicating Goods and Services Tax on food, opposing deep sea drilling, organising and funding a Māori health authority, lifting the minimum wage to $25 an hour, returning Department of Conservation land to Māori kaitiaki, and reducing homelessness. Since Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer's leadership began, the party has been described as left-wing, progressive, and "unapologetically Māori". Tariana Turia founded the Māori Party in 2004 after resigning from the governing Labour Party, in which she served as a minister, over the foreshore and seabed ownership controversy. She and Pita Sharples, a high-profile academic, became the first co-leaders. The party won four Māori seats in the 2005 election and went into Opposition. After the 2008, 2011 and 2014 elections, where the party won five, three and two Māori seats respectively, it supported a government led by the centre-right National Party, with the Māori Party co-leaders serving as ministers outside cabinet. During this time, the party advocated more moderate politics. The party won no seats in the 2017 election, which was analysed as being backlash for their support of National. Under new leadership they returned at the 2020 election, when Rawiri Waititi won the Waiariki electorate. Although the party's share of the country-wide party vote declined from 1.18% in 2017 to 1.17% in 2020, winning Waiariki gave the party the right to full proportional representation, giving it two MPs, with Debbie Ngarewa-Packer subsequently becoming a list MP. , the party's two MPs are also its co-leaders. History Formation The origins of Te Pāti Māori can be traced back to the 2004 foreshore and seabed controversy, a debate about whether the Māori have legitimate claim to ownership of part or all of New Zealand's foreshore and seabed, that arose during the Fifth Labour Government. A court judgement stated that some Māori appeared to have the right to seek formal ownership of