Oriini Kaipara, the new Te Pāti Māori MP for Tāmaki Makaurau, gave her first speech in Parliament on Thursday.
Kaipara, who was once a television broadcaster, won the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election in September, defeating Labour’s Peeni Henare by 3,519 votes.
About 100 people gathered in the public gallery to hear her maiden speech, including many children from kura kaupapa Māori schools who had travelled from Auckland. Kaipara began her address in te reo Māori before continuing in English.
She told Parliament that she would not focus on the harms of colonisation, saying those stories were already well known. Instead, she chose to speak about Māori resilience.
“I covered stories,” Kaipara said, referring to her years as a journalist, “and now I choose to change them.” She described herself not as a survivor of colonisation, but as a result of Māori endurance and unity.
Kaipara praised Māori culture and language, including te reo Māori, kapa haka, and Matariki, noting that none of these traditions survived by chance but through effort and resistance from both Māori and non-Māori.
After she finished, a haka broke out in the public gallery before Parliament was briefly suspended.
