 In 1879 he was elected to the New Zealand Parliament for the Eastern Maori electorate, and in 1898 was appointed to the New Zealand Legislative Council.He was a convenor of Te Kotahitanga, the movement for an independent Māori Parliament.Tomoana was born in the 1820s or early 1830s, probably in the Heretaunga Plains, near the present day site of the city of Hastings.